BANGKOK, 12 February 2014 The Department of Foreign Trade (DFT) has opened an auction of 467,000 tons of rice from the government’s stockpile amid a lively atmosphere, with up to 18 companies participating and more than 10 billion baht expected to be generated.
According to DFT Director-General Surasak Riangkrul, the auction was organized to release the rice the government had accepted from farmers under the rice pledging scheme. The rice put up for grabs comprised in-season rice from the 2011-2012 harvest season and off-season rice from the 2012 and 2012-2013 harvest seasons. Out of the 467,000 tons, about 367,000 tons was for domestic sales while the other 100,000 tons was for export.
On this occasion, 20 envelopes were handed in by 18 bidders, 15 envelopes for domestic sales and the other 5 for export. Tomorrow, the committee in charge of releasing the stockpiled rice is scheduled to open all the envelopes and negotiate with each bidder in order to secure the best prices possible. Mr Surasak said the department expected to raise over 10 billion baht from this auction.
To speed up the rice release, the director-general disclosed that the DFT would be holding as many as 2-3 rice auctions a month from now on, with the next lot of over 500,000 tons to be available for bidding next week.
Mr Surasak said 2.2 million tons of rice had been auctioned off so far while about 170-180 billion baht had been generated and paid back to the Ministry of Finance.
