The Foreign Trade Department will announce the terms of reference (TOR) for the auction of 400,000 tonnes of degraded rice on July 6 after which those who are interested to join the bidding can inspect the rice on July 11-15, said Mrs Duangporn Rodpayat, the department head, on Friday.
The degraded rice are part of remaining rice stockpiles bought by the previous Yingluck government under the rice pledging scheme. They are inedible and good for being processed into animal feeds.
Mrs Duangporn said the auction would be held in parallel with the release of good quality grains from the stockpiles because there is demand in the market coupled with low yield.
She anticipated that over six million tonnes of rice would be exported this year and, by the middle of next year, all the remaining rice stockpiles bought under the controversial rice pledging scheme would be sold out.
Regarding the orders for the purchase of 2.8 million tonnes of rice placed by foreign buyers with the private sector, Mrs Duangporn explained that the exporters must meet the required qualifications such as having registered as exporters with the Foreign Trade Department for over a year, having purchase orders from buyers and that they must purchase the whole lot of rice from each warehouse.
Mrs Duangporn maintained that the government would sell rice at the right timing and would not sell too much rice at a time to make sure that the transactions would not impact on farm prices.
