Thailand selling rice to 3 countries under G2G
Thailand will supply 3 million tonnes of rice to Bangladesh, the Philippines and Indonesia this year, increasing export opportunities amid sluggish trading by private rice exporters.
As they are friendly government-to-government deals, the contract price is lower than the market price, so the Thai government will have to shoulder losses. The three countries will also purchase less than the committed volume.
Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyaphirom said yesterday that the agreements would allow Thailand to achieve its export target of 9 million tonnes of rice this year.
High prices for Thai rice compared with other rice-exporting countries have led to a drop in export volume in the past five months. As of last Friday, exports by the private sector had dropped by 50.47 per cent year on year to 1.12 million tonnes.
Boonsong inked a two-year memorandum of understanding to sell 1 million tonnes of parboiled rice to Bangladesh per year.
The government has already signed one agreement to sell 1 million tonnes of rice a year for two years and another contract to sell to the Indonesian government 1 million tonnes of rice each year for five years.
Boonsong said Thai rice exports should get a boost soon after the |government releases rice from its inventory.
Although customer countries may purchase less rice, exports should increase gradually in the remaining months of this year, he said. Thai rice is still highly demanded by many countries, despite the high price.
Barun Dev Mitra, secretary of Bangladesh’s Food Division in the Food and Disaster Management Ministry, said his country planned to import about 100,000 tonnes of parboiled rice from Thailand in the next two months.
Although the price of Thai rice is higher than India’s, Thai rice is known for its higher quality. Bangladesh still prefers rice from Thailand. The contract price should not be too high as it is a friendship price between the two governments, he added.
Parboiled rice from Thailand is quoted at US$615 a tonne and from India at $480 a tonne.
Bangladesh is planning to import 300,000-400,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand this year, down from 736,782 tonnes last year. It is Thailand’s third-largest market for parboiled rice.
Boonsong also said Thailand |had no plan to exchange rice for tablet computers with the Chinese government.
