As a Thai who wishes for a prosperous future for Thai rice, I believe it should be traded at a much higher price than the set quota. After keeping up with reports in recent months, I could not help feeling frustrated about why it was so hard for the world's largest rice exporter to get serious about how to find the best way to sell the grain.

The government failed to sell 375,000 tonnes of rice in January and 500,000 tonnes late last month. I can accept the fact the government claimed the bids were scrapped as the offered prices were "unacceptably low", yet it is hard to deal with the fact that the move may stem from management |problems within the coalition |parties.

Actually, looking back at last year's reports, I found that the government had cancelled a bid in July. Back then, it had to refund Bt2.4 billion to the 17 bid winners and risked being sued due to the abrupt breaking of contracts.

The administration may suffer from further devaluation of Vietnam's dong against the dollar, and rumours of it putting another 2 million tonnes of rice under the hammer soon could force prices to fall sharply. But they should learn from the last bidding and listen to advice.

The numbers of bidders and proposed prices obviously plummeted in 2010's second auction. The Thai Rice Exporters' Association president said the plan was badly timed, and one bidder considered the repeated cancellation as deceitful. They suggested the government find another way out, such as selling via the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand or government-to-government deals that would not affect the overall market price.

With Thailand's rice exports dropping 43 per cent last year |and Vietnam's rising 27 per cent, I wonder how long the government will be able to stop prices from |rising due to a shortage caused by global warming or another in-festation, or if bidders would take part in another tender. Instead of waiting for a windfall, I hope the government finds the best and fastest way to drain its huge stocks of 5.6 million tonnes of milled rice bought for the people's sake and stop prices from sinking due to oversupply.

Source: The Nation