June 12, 2008
Bangkok - Somporn Isvilanont, professor at Kasetsart University’s Faculty of Economics, urged the government to establish the central market to be a choice for farmers.
He said the government also had to buy to support the rice price in the long run.
The price of rice will be lower than 10,000 baht per ton in the next 3-4 months as India, Vietnam and China are going to export their crops again.
Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, disagreed to the government’s G2G rice policy and barter trade, saying that would bring down the rice price in the world market.
Thailand is the world’s largest rice exporter followed Vietnam and India respectively.
Thailand’s rice exports are estimated to reach 8.75 million tons this year, yielding as much as 4.7 billion dollars.
Vietnam is expected to surely seize the rice orders of Malaysia and the Philippines from Thailand as it proposed price is lower than Thailand’s.
