BANGKOK, July 10 – The Commerce Ministry will hold rice auctions, aiming at reducing government rice stockd by about 500,000-1,000,000 tonnes of milled rice per month, Deputy Prime Minister/Commerce Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisarn said today.
Following a sub-committee meeting he chaired today on releasing rice stocks, he said that it was resolved to auction rice for domestic sales and exports two or three times a month.
The Department of Foreign Trade will announce the Terms of Reference (TOR) this Friday for small- and large-scale entrepreneurs to participate in the auction. Bids could be submitted in the next two weeks.
Initially, the government is to release 500,000-1,000,000 tonnes of milled rice per month and 400,000 tonnes of paddy per month, he said.
Regarding government-to-government rice sale contracts, China agreed to buy five million tonnes of Thai rice.
G-to-G rice sales will release more than seven million tonnes of stocks. As a result, Thailand will deliver more than 10 million tonnes to trade partners in three to five years as agreed in the contracts.
From January to June, Thailand exported about 4.5 million tonnes of rice worth about Bt60 billion and the commerce ministry has so far given about 139 billion baht to the finance ministry.
The ministry of commerce will release 500,000-1,000,000 tonnes of rice from government stocks through the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET) in six months.
The ministry will also auction 84,000 tonnes, mostly jasmine fragrant rice from warehouses in 14 provinces. It assigned each province’s sub-committee to work out the bidding criteria as soon as possible.
