Association confident situation will improve this month.

The export price of Thai rice has fallen sharply during the past week as importers suspended their orders after the panic over the skyrocketing price last month.

The Thai Rice Exporters Association reported on Wednesday that the market price of jasmine rice had dropped from US$1,123 (Bt34,000) last week to $1,109 a tonne. The export price of 100 per cent white rice was down from $542 to $519 a tonne, while parboiled rice has dropped from $553 to $529 a tonne.

However, the domestic price of paddy rice has not dropped like the export price because it is outside the harvest season.

The Internal Trade Department reported that the market price of paddy white rice was unchanged from last week, quoted at Bt8,500-Bt9,700 a tonne.

Korbsook Iamsuri, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said yesterday that the lower price was due to foreign buyers suspending orders for rice from Thailand. The price of Thai rice has increased sharply in the past few weeks, from $500 a tonne early last month to $543 a tonne for 100 per cent white rice in the middle of the month.

However, she is confident that rice exports will not drop this month as many markets will need to import more rice soon. Those countries are Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The association reports that the export volume of Thai rice soared year on year by 98.27 per cent to 1.06 million tonnes from June 1-27. Thailand exported 6.2 million tonnes of rice from January 1 to June 27.

Korbsook said the association must closely monitor export volume this month after lower purchase orders from overseas. However, the association is still confident that Thai rice export volume will achieve 10 million tonnes this year.

She added that the political factor had only a small impact on the market price of rice. Millers and exporters did not stock rice in the over the risk of changing policy.

Source: The Nation