Commerce Ministry to step up measures to boost prices of agricultural products

BANGKOK, 5 Dec 2014 (NNT) - The Commerce Ministry is drafting a plan to ensure stable and better prices of rice in the next 3 months when new output comes into the market. It is also drawing up the 2015 roadmap to improve prices of agricultural products, promote exports and look after the cost of living.

Minister of Commerce General Chatchai Sarikalya has ordered an advance plan be drawn up in preparation for the new rice harvest to enter the market in March 2015. He said a working group has been established to work closely with the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry and the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, to make sure new grains will fetch the highest price possible when they enter the market in the next three months.

The Minister indicated that his ministry is also in the process of drafting a roadmap for next year which would focus on improving prices of agricultural products, promoting exports and taking care of the living expenses.

He expected that the roadmap would be finished this month.


-- NNT 2014-12-05

Some of these objectives seem to be mutually exclusive

And later this month, the Commerce Ministry will be stepping up measures to stop food stalls and markets from increasing food prices.

Let the market decide perhaps?

With mass unemployment many are already hard pressed to feed their families. How does increased prices solve the problem? Send home immegrant workers And let Thais do those jobs that are below them

Perhaps he better talk to my wife about the already inflated prices, just after she comes back from the market. On second thought, that might not be a good idea, he wouldn't like what she had to tell him about increasing prices.

How about focusing on raising productivity to increase farmers' profits while keeping the rice competitively priced. When the whole world is price sensitive, raising the price won't do much to gain market share. I don't know if it is all Asia or just Thailand, but logic seems to be a foreign concept.