Thai Commerce Ministry holding tripartite talks today on aid to farmers

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Thai Commerce Ministry holding tripartite talks today on aid to farmers
By Digital Content



BANGKOK, Feb 19 – Thailand's Commerce Ministry will meet today with rice millers and farmers to find a way to assist the planters.

Caretaker Deputy Commerce Minister Yanyong Phuangrach said rice millers have proposed a fund to help farmers, while the planters themselves want a farmers' bank.

He said the Commerce Ministry would submit both proposals to related government agencies for further study.

Rice millers agreed that an earlier proposal by the Commerce Ministry for them to lend farmers producing rice receipts as collateral would be impractical while forming a fund to help farmers would take a few months to accomplish.

They urged the Commerce Ministry to urgently release rice from its stocks to rice millers, similar to its rice sales to exporters.

They said rice millers purchased over 500,000 tonnes of rice from the Foreign Trade Department last week.

Mr Yanyong said rice millers would be willing to buy rice on the condition of payment within 30 days – a method which, if successful, will generate Bt5-6 billion to pay farmers.

In the northeastern province of Ubon Ratchthani, over 4,000 farmers in Buntarik district have demanded a total due payment of Bt600 million from the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), saying they have waited for months.

A BAAC executive said the Buntarik branch was allocated the latest amount of Bt41 million which will be paid to farmers today.

Farmers threatened to protest in Bangkok if they did not receive payments by next week. (MCOT online news)


-- TNA 2014-02-19

[NeverSure]

[Soutpeel]

I heard a rumour yesterday from a Thai collegue that the PTP are trying to loot the budget which has been approved and held by AOT for the SUV airport expansion to pay the farmers.

dont know how true this is of course....

[slapout]

The Commerce Minister is in a corner, the millers offer to purchase with payment being made in 30 days after they take the cream of the stored rice stock. Does this scenerio sound familar to the government rice program, payment scam? Now its the "government who could possibly get the shaft, while the millers get the gold mine" the farmers are still left out in the cold, awaiting another screwing..

No one seems to want to invest their own money or borrow money to make money, Does everyone want a guarentee of profit and the good life, without any risk or individual expenditure on their part? Your mothers teat should have dried up when you were under 2 years of age. You cannot expect society to supply a wet nurse for the rest of your life.

[Why ask]

"Mr Yanyong said rice millers would be willing to buy rice on the condition of payment within 30 days – a method which, if successful, will generate Bt5-6 billion to pay farmers."

Mr Yanyong obviously wants his cut, before he goes down too... because he as hell for sure knows there is no kitty to pay back 5-6 billion, as the banks pulled out.

Yet, then we have BAAC saying they JUST received 41M Baht. <deleted> 41M? Wow.

I'd really like to know how 41M baht is going to pay farmers back 130 Billion outstanding, or even a days worth of outstanding debt to all. 41M? Is the guy nuts?

Does the guy think 41M baht is worth more than his effort to say it? Baa!

[Costas2008]

I wouldn't be surprised if Yingluck will instruct her ministers to go out in the street and start collecting money for the farmers.

What a state of afairs this administration has gone into.

Definitely better than a Greek tragedy.

[bangon04]

"while the planters themselves want a farmers' bank."

what a good idea. The can name it the "Thai Farmers Bank". Its logo can be green - like the colour of unripe or overripe rice. In fact the logo can include a depiction of a farm crop, just to make it clear what is the purpose of the bank.

Edited February 19, 2014 by bangon04

[winstonc]

im in ubon seriously red,they are not, happy and the band played on

[rubl]

I just read on the BangkokPost's site that the talks were a real success.

- encourage people to want to help (farmers that is) to deposit money in the BAAC to increase the liquidity the government has tried to undermine with their 700 billion borrowed from BAAC to spent on the rice scam.

- set up a fund to 'receive donations' with some tax revenue from millers also to be used (assuming the MoF agrees I guess)

- setup a new farmer's bank. Now that will go well with the BAAC which is doing all the hard work of providing loans to farmers. Note to some here, BAAC = Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. No info on how the government thinks to get sufficient funds to setup another State Bank they can borrow money from.

Well done, all problems solved this month, or at least start of next month, or sooner. We only need 130 billion initially.

[Scamper]

The administration is really improvising at this point, following all sorts of leads that can somehow shake them from this terrible dream that they're been continually having that tells them they have no legislative power.

[Robby nz]

I heard a rumour yesterday from a Thai collegue that the PTP are trying to loot the budget which has been approved and held by AOT for the SUV airport expansion to pay the farmers.

dont know how true this is of course....

Yes it was true, The AOT apparently has something like 37 billion of liquidity and were gong to lend it to the BAAC but the staff got all up in arms as they could see problems.

Seems the money is earmarked for expanding of 3 airports the AOT boss was all defensive saying it would be a wise interest bearing investment.

Whether it was still on or not seemed up in the air.

Go to BP and enter aot in search.

Was the news this morning.

[Valentine]

I just read on the BangkokPost's site that the talks were a real success.

- encourage people to want to help (farmers that is) to deposit money in the BAAC to increase the liquidity the government has tried to undermine with their 700 billion borrowed from BAAC to spent on the rice scam.

- set up a fund to 'receive donations' with some tax revenue from millers also to be used (assuming the MoF agrees I guess)

- setup a new farmer's bank. Now that will go well with the BAAC which is doing all the hard work of providing loans to farmers. Note to some here, BAAC = Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. No info on how the government thinks to get sufficient funds to setup another State Bank they can borrow money from.

Well done, all problems solved this month, or at least start of next month, or sooner. We only need 130 billion initially.

People still refer to Kasikorn as Thai Farmers bank. I don't follow your statement about borrowing 700 billion from BAAC or is that money BAAC have already paid & if so the 64 dollar question, who got that money? Some went to farmers but a lot has gone west, money which should have been available to the farmers. I truly hope this question gets answered & the robbers brought to justice followed by a long jail term. It has happened before as the head honcho of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce was sentenced to a long stay in prison plus a fine of billions.

[MaxLee]

"Thai Commerce Ministry holding tripartite talks today on aid to farmers"

Yep, dear farmers, you have to wait for your money. Thank you, go home...

[rubl]

I just read on the BangkokPost's site that the talks were a real success.

- encourage people to want to help (farmers that is) to deposit money in the BAAC to increase the liquidity the government has tried to undermine with their 700 billion borrowed from BAAC to spent on the rice scam.

- set up a fund to 'receive donations' with some tax revenue from millers also to be used (assuming the MoF agrees I guess)

- setup a new farmer's bank. Now that will go well with the BAAC which is doing all the hard work of providing loans to farmers. Note to some here, BAAC = Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. No info on how the government thinks to get sufficient funds to setup another State Bank they can borrow money from.

Well done, all problems solved this month, or at least start of next month, or sooner. We only need 130 billion initially.

People still refer to Kasikorn as Thai Farmers bank. I don't follow your statement about borrowing 700 billion from BAAC or is that money BAAC have already paid & if so the 64 dollar question, who got that money? Some went to farmers but a lot has gone west, money which should have been available to the farmers. I truly hope this question gets answered & the robbers brought to justice followed by a long jail term. It has happened before as the head honcho of the Bangkok Bank of Commerce was sentenced to a long stay in prison plus a fine of billions.

Valid questions deserve an answer

I know that KBank used to be Thai Farmers Bank, but KBank is a commercial bank. BAAC is a state bank set up I don't know how long ago to help the agricultural sector. Many times they have helped the government of the day with 'debt moratoriums'.

The 700 billion the government spent on the rice price pledging scheme was borrowed by them from a specially created 500 billion Baht revolving funds which didn't revolve. Hence the need to borrow more and hence the need for the current 130 billion extra. The BAAC get re-imbursed by the government for both the 500 billion initially paid out and their expenses.

Now as the government thought they could make sufficient profit to be able to keep such fund revolving, they choose to follow that path rather than reserving an amount in the National Budget and be bothered by parliamentary scrutiny.

How the 700 billion has been spent is totally unclear (to me). Not even sure that BAAC paid farmers or just anyone who had a government voucher.

Such scams have indeed happened before and some banks were too much 'family' bank as well. I've been to FBCB around that time. Filthy H.O. with an amazing amount of computer printouts in all corridors. When CityBank showed interest to take over, they started a due diligence process, but stopped after a while. Not that FBCB wasn't cooperative, they just couldn't provide answers.

[tomyummer]

"while the planters themselves want a farmers' bank."

what a good idea. The can name it the "Thai Farmers Bank". Its logo can be green - like the colour of unripe or overripe rice. In fact the logo can include a depiction of a farm crop, just to make it clear what is the purpose of the bank.

Yeah, and they could have a prominent glass headquarters near, say, the Rama 9 bridge which is on the banks of the Chaophraya River. Like a stalk of rice growing out of water.

[fleeing]

The only tripartite talks that will in anyway provide a solution that will see the rice farmers being paid, is if Pheu Thai can sit down and get agreement with the Democrats and all other political parties to collectively support a one-off payment that will be honoured by the next government, whatever party forms it.

This would probably also run against the constitution, but all party support would at least give the Constitutional Court some leeway to allow such a special measure, considering the urgent need to find a solution.

However the Democrats would, quite rightly, demand total transparency, with safeguards to make sure that the money actually goes to farmers and not family members of politicians. Something that Pheu Thai will oppose as long as it possibly can, because that same transparency would inevitably lead to their demise and possible conviction.

All other proposals are simply propaganda moves by the (care)taker government to buy more time. There is no way they can get hold of the 130 billion baht owed to the farmers without acting illegally, and no way they should be offered a hand to pull them out of this 'rice-swamp' of their own making, without guarantees that all details of how it has gone so wrong, who has actually benefited etc are declared openly for all to see.

[Crushdepth]

Is there any reason why farmers can't use their government pledge certificates as collateral to get a private loan from a bank?

Sent from somewhere in the Pacific

[peterquixote]

Its awful, we weep for Thailand, and I get to send money as well.

I wish I had never heard of Thailand, it has drained me.