Thai Commerce Ministry Seeks To Trim Rice Price

[webfact]

Ministry seeks to trim rice price
PETCHANET PRATRUANGKRAI
THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- With rice exports moving sluggishly, the Commerce Ministry will tomorrow propose that the National Rice Policy Committee revise down its pledged price from Bt15,000 a tonne to Bt13,000 or Bt14,000 a tonne for white paddy rice in April's second-crop harvest season.

Commerce Ministry permanent secretary Vatchari Vimooktayon said that a revision of the pledging price would be proposed in order to stimulate exports of Thai rice in the face of stiff competition from countries with lower prices.

"If the pledged price is lowered, it should stimulate growth in rice exports this year and help release rice from stockpiles, as well as promote rice industry growth," Vatchari said.

The National Rice Policy Committee will be chaired by Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom, but normally it would be chaired by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

GOVT SUPPORT

Vatchari said farmers should be able to accept the price change because the government will continue to support them and help with reducing the costs of production.

Although the price pledging is the result of the government's policy, it could be adjusted if it will create a better outcome for the rice industry, Vatchari said. Farmers should not suffer from lower incomes as most have relieved themselves of debts during the past two years of high prices, she added.

Since starting the pledging scheme at the guaranteed price of Bt15,000 per tonne of white paddy rice on October 7, 2011 to February this year, the Yingluck government has spent Bt476 billion, higher than the estimated Bt450 billion.

A total of 29.65 million tonnes of rice has been entered to the government stockpiles, with warehousing adding to the cost of the programme - approximately Bt800 a month per tonne.

The Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has admitted it has run out of funds to support the rice-pledging scheme. After selling stockpiled rice under government-to-government deals and contract bids, the government has returned just Bt72 billion to the BAAC, the bank claims.

PLEDGING PROJECT

Tikhumporn Natvaratat, Foreign Trade Department deputy director-general, said the Commerce Ministry will today(February 28) meet with the Public Debt Management Office and the BAAC to finalise the liquidity of the pledging project.

He insisted that the government would be able to continue the pledging scheme because the government can sell a high volume of rice under government-to-government deals. However, the government has not disclosed the selling price and total volume of those deals.

A source from the Thai Rice Exporters Association was delighted with the Commerce Ministry's proposal to cut the pledged price because lower prices would boost exports.

The source said the lower price shouldn't hurt farmers. The second-crop harvest season is focused on the Central plains, where farmers have enjoyed high prices.

According to the association's data, Thai rice exports shrank by 35 per cent last year to 6.94 million tonnes. Compared to a year ago, rice exports from January to February 25 this year dropped slightly by 3.54 per cent to 685,372 tonnes.


-- The Nation 2013-02-28

[chooka]

What's wrong, no body buying the overpriced rotting rice? I thought certain people in government were saying that the world would still be falling over themselves to snap up all the rice at any price simply because its THAI Rice.

[Ricardo]

Is this the trickle, coming from the dyke, quick who's got a spare finger ?!

The pre-election promise wasn't for B13k or B14k, it was for B15k & B20k, and given increasing costs like labour/minimum-wage, this can only be seen as a clear retreat from this key PTP-commitment.

Also reducing the new-crop pledge-price won't help revive exports, their current-stocks were already purchased at B15k, so the government needs rather to cut its resale-price to enable exporters to revive sales overseas, and accept that the whole scheme has been a costly disaster.

Is this likely ? Not while he-who-thinks continues to believe, he can manipulate world prices for rice, rather than accepting that he's cocked it up !

But by all means continue to blame the other producing-countries, for selling their rice more cheaply than Thailand's, if they wish to continue to live in la-la-land.

Oh, and notice the swift sideways move , away from responsibility & chairing the committee, of PM-Yingluck. When one spots a shower-of-shit coming, a wise women doesn't rely, on photo-ops or a shoddy umbrella !

Edited February 28, 2013 by Ricardo

[Buchholz]

with warehousing adding to the cost of the programme - approximately Bt800 a month per tonne.

.

Thai Rice Reserves Seen at Record as UN Flags Warehouse Shortage

18.2 million metric tons in 2013

Bloomberg - February 8, 2013

.

18,200,000 x 800 = A rice barge size stack of 1,000 baht notes PER MONTH.

.

[dcutman]

A total of 29.65 million tonnes of rice has been entered to the
government stockpiles, with warehousing adding to the cost of the
programme - approximately Bt800 a month per tonne.

Thats a pretty scary number. Not sure how many tons of this rotten "quality" rice they have been warehousing. So lets just assume ,on average, it has been 10 million tons stored over the last 18 months. At present there is 18.2 mil tons stored.

10,000,000x800= 8,000,000,000x18months = 144,000,000,000 This just for rice.There are 14 other crops that have been pledged similarly.

No reports as of yet how much rice has been lost (rotted) to extended storage. But there there has been reports of other pledged crop loss.

Over 10,000 tonnes of rubber in these three provinces was left to decay, causing about one billion baht in damage

The government faces a problem of deteriorating quality of red onions. Bt289 million worth of the pledged crop is rotten.

Some more crop pledging scams schemes:

The price of cassava remains low at Bt1.30-Bt1.90 per kilo, while the pledging price is Bt2.75-2.90

The government needs to raise its pledging budget for garlic to Bt1.6 billion

[Buchholz]

He insisted that the government would be able to continue the pledging scheme because the government can sell a high volume of rice under government-to-government deals. However, the government has not disclosed the selling price and total volume of those deals.

.

Good reason he won't disclose details of his imagined "high volume" shipments.

because it avoids the reality...

.

Thai rice shipments plunged 37 percent to 6.73 million tons last year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Jan. 23. Thats the lowest level since 2000

Bloomberg - February 8, 2013

[EyesWideOpen]

I think perhaps an error of English usage has occurred here. The word dump

should be substituted for the word trim. As many TV posters predicted,

Thailand is soon to be the hub of rotten rice.....

[Locationthailand]

Finally an admission this ridiculous scam has been exposed and the Thai community at large will be asked to pay yet again through taxation,(after of course the fat cats have stripped their 'commissions') for the complete mismanagement by this manipulated government of Thailand, now verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries. And now we have the illustrious PM on her knees begging for investors in HK. Am I missing something here or is this a comedy role out?

[chooka]

What happened to the Govt to Govt deals they apparently struck to offload all the rice on foriegn countries?

[Ricardo]

A total of 29.65 million tonnes of rice has been entered to the

government stockpiles, with warehousing adding to the cost of the

programme - approximately Bt800 a month per tonne.

Thats a pretty scary number. Not sure how many tons of this rotten "quality" rice they have been warehousing. So lets just assume ,on average, it has been 10 million tons stored over the last 18 months. At present there is 18.2 mil tons stored.

10,000,000x800= 8,000,000,000x18months = 144,000,000,000 This just for rice.There are 14 other crops that have been pledged similarly.

No reports as of yet how much rice has been lost (rotted) to extended storage. But there there has been reports of other pledged crop loss.

Over 10,000 tonnes of rubber in these three provinces was left to decay, causing about one billion baht in damage

The government faces a problem of deteriorating quality of red onions. Bt289 million worth of the pledged crop is rotten.

Some more crop pledging scams schemes:

The price of cassava remains low at Bt1.30-Bt1.90 per kilo, while the pledging price is Bt2.75-2.90

The government needs to raise its pledging budget for garlic to Bt1.6 billion

Deteriorating red onions, and over-age garlic, it will all end in lots of tears !

And B144-billion, just for storing the rice, no wonder the government can't reimburse the BAAC, they're close-to-bust !

Never mind, it's only public-money, and there's plenty more where that comes from, if not just borrow another couple-of-Trillion !

Edited February 28, 2013 by Ricardo

[fokus]

The guys up in my area are still waiting to be paid from the rice mills after handing over their crop, and that was 3 months ago.

[dcutman]

The guys up in my area are still waiting to be paid from the rice mills after handing over their crop, and that was 3 months ago.

Thats because the BAAC is out of money. It is hard to squeeze baht out of rotten rice.

[smutcakes]

Finally an admission this ridiculous scam has been exposed and the Thai community at large will be asked to pay yet again through taxation,(after of course the fat cats have stripped their 'commissions') for the complete mismanagement by this manipulated government of Thailand, now verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries. And now we have the illustrious PM on her knees begging for investors in HK. Am I missing something here or is this a comedy role out?

This rice scheme is not good, I think you would go a long way to find someone who disagrees with that. The rest of your post is just complete rubbish, why do you need to go completely overboard?

[apetley]

I think there is going to be some mighty pissed off rice farmers if the pledge price comes down.

Rent has gone through the roof and is now 2500 bht per rai per crop in our village. Fertiliser price is only going one way and it isn't down. People have been ploughing up sugar cane fields and turning them over to rice paddy in the expectation of striking it rich.

Edited February 28, 2013 by apetley

[GentlemanJim]

Finally an admission this ridiculous scam has been exposed and the Thai community at large will be asked to pay yet again through taxation,(after of course the fat cats have stripped their 'commissions') for the complete mismanagement by this manipulated government of Thailand, now verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries. And now we have the illustrious PM on her knees begging for investors in HK. Am I missing something here or is this a comedy role out?

This rice scheme is not good, I think you would go a long way to find someone who disagrees with that. The rest of your post is just complete rubbish, why do you need to go completely overboard?

eeeerr! I am not really sure he has gone 'completely overboard'. Just what bit exactly is 'completely overboard'?

[smutcakes]

Finally an admission this ridiculous scam has been exposed and the Thai community at large will be asked to pay yet again through taxation,(after of course the fat cats have stripped their 'commissions') for the complete mismanagement by this manipulated government of Thailand, now verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries. And now we have the illustrious PM on her knees begging for investors in HK. Am I missing something here or is this a comedy role out?

This rice scheme is not good, I think you would go a long way to find someone who disagrees with that. The rest of your post is just complete rubbish, why do you need to go completely overboard?

eeeerr! I am not really sure he has gone 'completely overboard'. Just what bit exactly is 'completely overboard'?

Is Thailand really verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries? really? just really?????

[kimamey]

The guys up in my area are still waiting to be paid from the rice mills after handing over their crop, and that was 3 months ago.

Thats because the BAAC is out of money. It is hard to squeeze baht out of rotten rice.

I don't know the details of this but it's the mills that haven't paid the farmers. It's not clear if the mills have been paid but are just holding on to the money and possibly using the BAAC's shortage of funds as an excuse.

I don't think this scheme was ever going to work as it was set up and I don't know if a reduction from 15,000 to 13,000 will help or not. There's still the backlog to clear first. If we assume that it has a chance of succeeding then if the government were to come clean and admit the problem and announce their plans to improve things then I would at least give them credit for that. The trouble is all I can so far is what appears to be a cover up and shifting of responsibility. The PM getting out of the firing line looks bad at the very least. Being in charge means taking responsibility as well as credit.

I know it's sometimes difficult to give exact details of business dealings due to commercial confidentiality but I think it looks more like the government to government deals are just a cover. It would be worth knowing if deals of this kind are more transparent when the price is good. I don't seem to remember the same sort of opaqueness with the tablet deal which as far as I recall a g2g deal as well.

[Ricardo]

What happened to the Govt to Govt deals they apparently struck to offload all the rice on foriegn countries?

IIRC they were all for delivery by the end of 2013, although they were announced in 2012, whether they will all take place seems open-to-question, until the counterpart-governments confirm whether the deals really do exist at all. Which they seem worryingly reluctant to do.

Meanwhile "rice exports moving sluggishly" is due to wicked low-priced producers elsewhere, not someone thinking they can manipulate world prices for a few years, and being proven wrong.

A U-turn on pricing for the new crop would be sensible, if it can be managed without PTP poo-yais losing face, but it does nothing to address the existing record-stocks which were bought at closer-to the pre-election-promise prices, and which remain significantly above the price the government or exporters can sell it for, were the government to release more of the ageing warehouse-stocks.

Meanwhile farmers go unpaid, storage-fees escalate, export-volumes plummet, long-term customers go elsewhere, the stored-rice rots and the BAAC can't pay-out because the government doesn't pay-out.

Do PM-Yingluck, and her PTP-led coalition-government really want to make BAAC bankrupt, when there are already at-least two other struggling banks ?

Edited February 28, 2013 by Ricardo

[AleG]

Time to eat crow with a side dish of rotten rice.

[Yo Sup]

Is this the trickle, coming from the dyke, quick who's got a spare finger ?!

The pre-election promise wasn't for B13k or B14k, it was for B15k & B20k, and given increasing costs like labour/minimum-wage, this can only be seen as a clear retreat from this key PTP-commitment.

Also reducing the new-crop pledge-price won't help revive exports, their current-stocks were already purchased at B15k, so the government needs rather to cut its resale-price to enable exporters to revive sales overseas, and accept that the whole scheme has been a costly disaster.

Is this likely ? Not while he-who-thinks continues to believe, he can manipulate world prices for rice, rather than accepting that he's cocked it up !

But by all means continue to blame the other producing-countries, for selling their rice more cheaply than Thailand's, if they wish to continue to live in la-la-land.

Oh, and notice the swift sideways move , away from responsibility & chairing the committee, of PM-Yingluck. When one spots a shower-of-shit coming, a wise women doesn't rely, on photo-ops or a shoddy umbrella !

The spare finger is otherwise engaged. It's way deep in an arse somewhere and feeling around for grey matter... Don't expect a prompt return...

[Pib]

Boy, this proposal to trim the price the govt will pay for rice is going to tip over a bunch of people's rice bowls. This is probably just a test ballon by the govt to see what type of reaction it gets.

[slapout]

It would seem the Commerce Ministry is about as on top of this, the rice scam, as the rest of the agencies UNcerned with it.

The figures and statements concerning storage quanities, farm debt, production cost, storage cost and farmer income are c completely opposite to what has been reported for the past year by this same government. Do these people do any research on a topic before they start talking about it?

These people seem to have fallen out of the same tree as the knowledgeable fellow who made the proposal for better results for the police force. "Since they normally have 2 people on a motorcycle, the pillion rider should face backwards", thus they can see more crime and catch more criminals.

The Thai ship "Lollipop" does appear rudderless, Captain is on shore leave, mechanics confined to sick bay, on duty personal broke into stock of rum, and those on shore leave are awol.

[Moruya]

Using a nut to crack a sledgehammer

[AleG]

What happened to the Govt to Govt deals they apparently struck to offload all the rice on foriegn countries?

Expenditure of public money + No transparency + No Acountability = Corruption.

Please watch this talk by Afra Raymond: Three Myths About Corruption.

[Robby nz]

the Commerce Ministry will tomorrow propose

By tomorrow they will have got a phone call telling them this will lose votes, that is more important than money.

Particurlarly when its not your money.

[EyesWideOpen]

What happened to the Govt to Govt deals they apparently struck to offload all the rice on foriegn countries?

Expenditure of public money + No transparency + No Acountability = Corruption.

Please watch this talk by Afra Raymond: Three Myths About Corruption.

Great talk by Afra ! Thanks for the link. He was talking about Trinidad and Tobago, but he may as well as be talking about Thailand....

[Pimay1]

What happened to the Govt to Govt deals they apparently struck to offload all the rice on foriegn countries?

It is a secret and they can't tell.

[Buchholz]

The guys up in my area are still waiting to be paid from the rice mills after handing over their crop, and that was 3 months ago.

I think there is going to be some mighty pissed off rice farmers if the pledge price comes down. Rent has gone through the roof and is now 2500 bht per rai per crop in our village. Fertiliser price is only going one way and it isn't down. People have been ploughing up sugar cane fields and turning them over to rice paddy in the expectation of striking it rich.

.

Farmers should have no issue with either of the above, as, after all... they've been sorted.

.

Commerce Ministry Permanent Secretary Vatchari Vimooktayon said...

Farmers should not suffer from lower incomes as most have relieved themselves of debts during the past two years of high prices, she added.

.

and besides, she's no one to mess with....

QUOTE:

Thai Rice Reserves Seen at Record as UN Flags Warehouse Shortage

18.2 million metric tons in 2013

Bloomberg - February 8, 2013

UNQUOTE.

18 million tons of stored rice?

No problem, United Nations.

What do you guys know, anyways?

You're not our father.

Permanent-Secretary for Commerce Ministry Vatchari Vimooktayon claimed yesterday that Thailand has the capacity to store 30 Million Tons of rice.... even though no where near that amount has ever actually been stored before.

.

Permanent-Secretary for Commerce Ministry Vatchari Vimooktayon

.

Edited February 28, 2013 by Buchholz

[seajae]

with warehousing adding to the cost of the programme - approximately Bt800 a month per tonne.

.

>Thai Rice Reserves Seen at Record as UN Flags Warehouse Shortage

18.2 million metric tons in 2013

Bloomberg - February 8, 2013

.

18,200,000 x 800 = A rice barge size stack of 1,000 baht notes PER MONTH.

.

and of course all the ptp/red govt ministers and thaksin plus his mates are the ones getting it, of course they want it to continue.

[OzMick]

Finally an admission this ridiculous scam has been exposed and the Thai community at large will be asked to pay yet again through taxation,(after of course the fat cats have stripped their 'commissions') for the complete mismanagement by this manipulated government of Thailand, now verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries. And now we have the illustrious PM on her knees begging for investors in HK. Am I missing something here or is this a comedy role out?

This rice scheme is not good, I think you would go a long way to find someone who disagrees with that. The rest of your post is just complete rubbish, why do you need to go completely overboard?

eeeerr! I am not really sure he has gone 'completely overboard'. Just what bit exactly is 'completely overboard'?

Is Thailand really verified as the laughing stock of all Asian countries? really? just really?????

You are quite right - only the rice exporters are laughing at Thailand's stupidity for pricing themselves out of the market. Oh, and Thailand's former rice customers. Shall we call it a majority?