Commerce ministry proposing 7 measures shoring up rice prices.
As the Cabinet is acting to adopt a price guarantee programme for agricultural products and is abandoning the existing mortgage system, the Thailand’s Ministry of Commerce will this week propose seven measures to maintain rice prices, a senior ministry official said Sunday.
Director-general Yanyong Phuangrach of the Internal Trade Department said the ministry will propose the measures at a meeting of the National Rice Policy Committee Wednesday.
The measures, according to Mr. Yanyong, include mortgaging a portion of ‘Mali’ fragrant rice production and store it at the farmers’ barn with the mortgage price lower than the market price at Bt1,000 per tonne. The maximum amount of rice to be mortgaged is 1.5 million tonnes.
Other measures include holding countrywide rice fairs to prevent provincial ricemillers from depressing prices and to allow rice exporters to increase their stocks at over 500 tonnes, designed for allowing them to more quickly buy rice for storage in warehouses so that rice prices would be maintained at high level, he said.
