No buyers for Thai rice stockpiles
Global rice buyers remain reluctant to purchase Thai rice even though prices have fallen drastically and are now on par with Vietnamese grain, the Thai Rice Exporters Association said, adding that this was “very unusual and has never happened in Thai rice trading.”
The chamber said that this could be because rice buyers and traders are betting Thai rice prices will drop further as the Thai government is under pressure to accelerate the sales of its rice stocks to fetch proceeds and pay out farmers taking part in the rice pledging programme who are waiting for payment since November.
The state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, responsible for the payouts, needs 51 billion baht ($1.6 billion) for immediate payment to farmers but was neither able to raise the money on the capital markets nor received funds from the government.
Thai rice shipments for 2013 are estimated at only 6.5 million tonnes, far below the 8.5 million goal of the Commerce Ministry. In the first 11 months of 2013, Thailand shipped only 5.9 million tonnes, with shipments in December estimated at 300,000 tonnes, which critics see as proof for the “disastrous rice pledging scheme of the populist government.”
Global rice buyers remain reluctant to purchase Thai rice even though prices have fallen drastically and are now on par with Vietnamese grain, the Thai Rice Exporters Association said, adding that this was "very unusual and has never happened in Thai rice trading." The chamber said that this could be because rice buyers and traders are betting Thai rice prices will drop further as the Thai government is under pressure to accelerate the sales of its rice stocks to fetch proceeds and pay out farmers taking part in the rice pledging programme who are waiting for payment since November. The...
Global rice buyers remain reluctant to purchase Thai rice even though prices have fallen drastically and are now on par with Vietnamese grain, the Thai Rice Exporters Association said, adding that this was “very unusual and has never happened in Thai rice trading.”
The chamber said that this could be because rice buyers and traders are betting Thai rice prices will drop further as the Thai government is under pressure to accelerate the sales of its rice stocks to fetch proceeds and pay out farmers taking part in the rice pledging programme who are waiting for payment since November.
The state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, responsible for the payouts, needs 51 billion baht ($1.6 billion) for immediate payment to farmers but was neither able to raise the money on the capital markets nor received funds from the government.
Thai rice shipments for 2013 are estimated at only 6.5 million tonnes, far below the 8.5 million goal of the Commerce Ministry. In the first 11 months of 2013, Thailand shipped only 5.9 million tonnes, with shipments in December estimated at 300,000 tonnes, which critics see as proof for the “disastrous rice pledging scheme of the populist government.”
