Pricing ourselves out of the market

India is poised to rival Vietnam as the world’s biggest exporter of our key income-earner, ending our 30-year reign. The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines forecasts that India may export 7 million tonnes of rice in the fiscal year ending August 31, more than double the 2.8 million tons shipped last year. The US Department of Agriculture forecasts that Vietnam will ship 7 million tonnes this year, versus only 6.5 million tons for us, down 39 per cent from last year as we deliberately choose to price ourselves out of the competition.

World rice prices have slumped by 17 per cent since peaking in 2008, and global rice production will probably outpace demand for the eighth year, for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasts 488 million tonnes of milled rice production this year, versus consumption of 477 million tons. Gratuitously giving away our leading position in world markets for our major crop is no way for PM Yingluck to reward the millions of farmers who voted for her. Also, taxpayers who voted for her will have to make up the shortfall between the mortgage and prices, either on world or domestic markets, so that the crop can be sold.

When she presented her policies to Parliament in her maiden speech, then-PM-designate Yingluck was lambasted from all sides for focusing mainly on the short term, and our female Moses hasn’t enlightened us on what the Promised Land she’s leading us to looks like.

I suggest that despite her record-high popularity, she needs long-run objectives. She also needs to encourage public debate on those issues, to generate buy-in, and to ensure that short-term policies, like bringing her brother home, fit into those objectives. Killing the goose that lays golden eggs isn’t the way to go.

Burin Kantabutra 

Bangkok