New rice stock under pledging scheme to be auctioned

By English News

BANGKOK, Jan 24 – Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom has ordered a new bid for rice under the rice pledging scheme given increasing demand in the local market.

He said the Thai Rice Packers Association and the Thai Rice Mill Association are keen to buy rice from the government’s stock, while farmers have sold nine million tonnes of rice to the government from their current crop under the rice pledging scheme.

Mr Boonsong pledged that the government’s warehouses are capable of stocking the rice even though the Marketing Organisation for Farmers was instructed to find additional storage locations.

An estimated 11-12 million tonnes of rice will be bought by the Commerce Ministry under the pledging scheme in this harvest year, and rice has been gradually distributed to buyers since December, he said.

Korn Chatikavanij, former finance minister and Democrat Party deputy leader, said the government has not adhered to financial discipline, particularly regarding the rice pledging scheme and the water management projects under a Bt350 billion loan.

This Friday marks one year of the loan approval but only Bt4 billion has been earmarked, while the law sets June as the deadline to allocate the entire loan, he said.

Theerachai Puvanartnaranubala, finance minister in the previous Pheu Thai cabinet, said Thailand will encounter the problem of having am unsustainable economy in the long term with the public debt approaching a critical point.

Corruption, an inefficient bureaucratic system, state officials subordinated to politicians and populism are some of the challenging factors working against the country’s development, he said. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2013-01-24

How and why do you release rice "gradually" when everybody knows you have massive quantities stockpiled? Will the auctions have a reserve price at the price paid for it, or is the government prepared to lose money on the sales, and be accused of dumping?

This Friday marks one year of the loan approval but only Bt4 billion has been earmarked

Lest we forget, PTP argued the loan was needed NOW!, an emergency budget to quickly deal with water management, so they bypassed parliament to approve it.

How and why do you release rice "gradually" when everybody knows you have massive quantities stockpiled? Will the auctions have a reserve price at the price paid for it, or is the government prepared to lose money on the sales, and be accused of dumping?

Mick it is pretty obvious they will only be able to sell it if the price meets the market, i.e. losses to be sure. Another brilliant example of stupidity of populist policies but you can bet those in the 'know' will already be shorting the shares.

This "increasing demand in the local market", might that not be due to increasingly-desperate rice-exporters, trying to obtain limited-stocks for export, to try to maintain their previous customers through this government-planned breakdown in the established supply-chain ?

Why not just release more of the old-crop rice to all the exporters, rather than a favoured few, through an auction to try to minimise the governments' trading-losses, so that the exporters can get on with selling it overseas instead of searching for other sources-of-supply in neighbouring countries ?

That would also help the Finance-Minister with his recently-announced cashflow-problem, assist the exporters keep their businesses alive, and reduce the need to find/build ever-more warehouse-space to rent, thus also reducing the cost to-the-public-purse of renting ... Oops, I think I just saw the flaw in my logic.

I wonder what the final auction-price will be, higher or lower than world market-prices, and when the men-from-the-ministry will be able to resume publishing shipment-data ?

I haven't noticed the price of rice in the grocery stores going up by much, so they must be selling to the domestic market at about the normal market price. So, they must be taking a loss on domestic sales. I doubt if the WTO will find anything to object to in this sort of arrangement, but sales in the international market are another matter entirely.

How and why do you release rice "gradually" when everybody knows you have massive quantities stockpiled? Will the auctions have a reserve price at the price paid for it, or is the government prepared to lose money on the sales, and be accused of dumping?

Using Thai logic, the government will blame the loss on the buyers after the auction. Claiming that if they had not bid so low, the government would not have lost any money. Then the government will be in the clear, and all the red shirts will be upset with the buyers who are all from the rich elite.

Afterall the red shirts actually believe Thailand has more oil than Saudi Arabia, and that the rich are smuggling it out of the country to get rich - they will believe anything Tida and the red shirt radio tells them!

I guess a positive to this sham, this should keep a lot of people busy trying to launder the vast proceeds they are receiving for their contribution and oversight or lack thereof. While that is going on maybe some other projects will provide some benifit to the Thai population, I know wishful thinking.

It has gone awfully quiet on the reported 1 billion us, sent to HK, from Thailand, and no mention of the Thai couple who left 1 million us in a taxie in Singapore and not even a nickname was attributed to those involved.

I haven't noticed the price of rice in the grocery stores going up by much, so they must be selling to the domestic market at about the normal market price. So, they must be taking a loss on domestic sales. I doubt if the WTO will find anything to object to in this sort of arrangement, but sales in the international market are another matter entirely.

Seems Shinzo Abe wasn't too keen to buy it....

I haven't noticed the price of rice in the grocery stores going up by much, so they must be selling to the domestic market at about the normal market price. So, they must be taking a loss on domestic sales. I doubt if the WTO will find anything to object to in this sort of arrangement, but sales in the international market are another matter entirely.

Seems Shinzo Abe wasn't too keen to buy it....

Yes - he daren't upset the Japanese rice growers.

How and why do you release rice "gradually" when everybody knows you have massive quantities stockpiled? Will the auctions have a reserve price at the price paid for it, or is the government prepared to lose money on the sales, and be accused of dumping?

I think this calls for a buy 1 ton get one free promotion!!!!

They wanted to use Don Muang airport as their rice cargo, The only thing that's missing is that they are going to use Suvarnabumi airport as their next cargo

Its all so very dodgy