The Commerce Ministry is preparing to hold another rice auction in September after teams sent by the military's ruling National Council for Peace and Order finished inspecting government stockpiles to determine volumes and quality on Thursday.

Duangporn Rodphaya, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said the ministry would continue to sell small lots of rice to private traders during the off-harvest season over the next two months.

"The next auction will be held in the second week of September. The types of rice up for bid will be mixed to reflect demand for both export and domestic supply," she said.

The ministry in early August called bids for 167,000 tonnes of rice. It sold 73,200 tonnes to 11 traders after bargaining for higher prices. The sale generated about Bt740 million.

Duangporn said the government should be able to get suitable bids in next month's auction because demand in the rice market is high at present.

The highest price offered for jasmine rice in the August auction was Bt28,000 per tonne. For the next sale, a ministry committee overseeing releases of rice from the stockpiles has adjusted some conditions for setting a floor price to ensure the bids are in accordance with expectations.

According to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, the market price of 5 per cent white rice was quoted at US$441 per tonne as of August 27, slightly down from $447 per tonne the previous week because of a weaker baht. The price of the second-grade Thai jasmine rice was unchanged at $1,090 per tonne.

Quality inspection

Duangporn said the ministry would sell only rice that had passed the quality inspection ordered by the junta. It will not include the 90,000 tonnes left over from the last auction in next month's sale because it has not yet cleared the quality inspection.

The ministry is confining its rice sales to small lots until the upcoming harvest season because it wants to keep close track of the exact volume and quality of the rice in the stockpiles.

It has been reported that the government has about 18 million tonnes of rice in its stocks, but about 10 per cent is missing or of a lower standard.

Duangporn said that now that the 1,800 warehouses nationwide had been inspected, officials would spend the next two weeks documenting the results.

Source: The Nation