BANGKOK, July 31 – Five traders entered bids for 200,000 tonnes of 5 per cent white rice from the 2012/2013 crop under the government’s rice pledging scheme.
The Foreign Trade Department held a bidding yesterday and five companies proposed their tender price offers.
The five bidders were Nakornluang Rice Mill Co, Chaiporn Rice and Food Products Co, Asia Golden Rice Co, Kamolkit Co and Royal Richy Rice Co. Bid winners will be announced today.
The bids were in accord with purchase orders from trading partners and each trader’s export volume. Bid winners will process the white rice into parboiled rice for export purposes.
Such a bidding was the first of its kind conducted by the Commerce Ministry in attempting to release rice from its stockpiles of more than 17 million tonnes as new batches of rice from the 2013/2014 harvest season will be sold to the government under the rice subsidy programme in October.
Chookiat Opaswong, honorary chairman of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said the private sector was less interested in bidding for paddy to be processed as parboiled rice.
Terms of Reference (TOR) for the bids were unclear, he said, and the country’s existing 20 exporters of parboiled rice could buy paddy from other suppliers, rather than the Commerce Ministry.
