BANGKOK, 19 May 2015 – The government is preparing to release another 2 million tons of rice within the next two months, in order to minimize effects on the new rice crop due this month.
Chutima Bunyapraphasara, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, disclosed after Monday’s meeting of the rice management and policy committee that the meeting had discussed the release of 16 million tons of rice in the government’s stockpile. Of the figure, 5 million tons are high-quality rice. Two million tons have already been sold, and another two million will be sold within two months.
Meanwhile, more than 10 million tons of rice in the stockpile are of low quality. The Ministry of Commerce will have surveyor companies inspect this portion of rice to determine whether the rice can be used as human or animal food. If not, this portion of rice will be sold to ethanol or alcohol factories.
The Ministry of Commerce expects to fetch about 200 billion baht from the sale of all 16 million tons of rice in stock, which was acquired at a cost of about 600 billion baht during the past government.
The government has been able to sell 3.4 million tons of rice since the start of the year. The commerce ministry expects to sell the rice at between 8,200-8,500 baht per ton
