Commerce chief to finalise price guarantee deal for oil palm and rice

By The Nation

 

 

The Commerce Minister has vowed to submit the price guarantee policy for oil palm and rice for cabinet approval today (August 27), the first two of five key crops that will mark the beginning of the government’s crop price guarantee scheme to help farmers nationwide.

 

Addressing participants of Monday’s “Economic Strategy under New Government” seminar, Deputy prime minister and Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanavisit said that the five key crops to receive price guarantees from the government are rice, oil palm, rubber, tapioca and corn. “Five types of rice will be guaranteed at Bt15,000-10,000 per ton under a budget of Bt21 billion, while oil palm will be guaranteed at Bt4 per kg under a budget of Bt10 billion,” he said. “I will present the scheme for these two crops to the cabinet tomorrow and hopefully the scheme for rest will follow shortly.”

 

The deputy prime minister added that other crops beside these five will receive appropriate supporting measures in due time, but most likely not the price guarantee.

 

Jurin further explained that the case of oil palm will need special attention since the market is currently tricky. “Oil palm supply is too high while the demand does not quite catch up,” he said. “To fix this, the Ministry is planning to enforce the B10 as mandatory biodiesel and push the B7 and B20 to optional alternatives instead, along with other measures such as using rubber road barriers instead of concrete ones.”

 

“We are also preparing additional measures to help expand export markets for rice,” said Jurin. “The top priority now is to restore markets that we’ve lost, such as Iraq, who has halted rice imports from us for many years due to quality issues. We must regain their confidence by improving our product quality and prove to them that we are ready to be a trade partner again.”

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30375408

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2019-08-27

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So Iraq won't buy thai rice because of the low quality....add to that the very high price (double price compared to thai neighbours) and conclude that thailand has serious issues to deal with.

6 hours ago, webfact said:

“Oil palm supply is too high while the demand does not quite catch up,”

So you cut production and draw-down supply. 

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Commerce chief to finalise price guarantee deal for oil palm and rice

Finalise the fix he means !!!!

7 hours ago, webfact said:

restore markets that we’ve lost, such as Iraq

Around 85% of rice consumed in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region is imported.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/business/05032019

In 2017:

• 1,016,000 tons of rice worth $690 million has been imported. Of this amount, 735,000 tons was imported by the government while domestic production hovered around 269,000 tons.
• 550,000 tons from India, 180,000 from Vietnam, 95,000 from Uruguay, 33,000 from the US, 29,000 from Thailand, 8,000 from Turkey and 7,000 thousand from Iran were imported.

Thailand doesn't seem to really have any rice market to restore - pricing issues?

8 hours ago, webfact said:

“Five types of rice will be guaranteed at Bt15,000-10,000 per ton

I thought I seen this rice pricing before. Bingo!

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to win the July 2011 election and lead the Pheu Thai Party: Guarantee the procurement price of rice paddy for farmers at THB 15,000 (roughly $450) per ton