Losses less than Bt260bn in first two years: Niwatthumrong
Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Niwatthumrong Boonsongpaisan clarified that the rice-pledging scheme should not produce over Bt260 billion in losses in the first two years.
He said Wednesday that the post-audit committee's Bt330 billion losses include some items not related to the scheme. Among them, it is the management fee worth Bt20 billion and Bt160 billion losses incurred from the rice schemes introduced since 2007 by the previous governments. Some 3 million tonnes of rice, worth about Bt70 billion, are yet to be accounted for.
Totally, under this government’s operations, the rice-pledging scheme shows a loss of only Bt260 billion, he said.
He also noted that the Commerce Ministry would rush on releasing the rice stockpiles, with confidence that some Bt200 billion could be returned to Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.
Referring to the government's attempt to sell rice to China to partially finance a high-speed train project, he said more details are to be finalised, tentatively within the third quarter of next year.
