The Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) is revamping its operations to focus more on trading and stockpiling in light of the new government's planned reintroduction of the rice-pledging scheme. The aim is to facilitate the distribution of rice and other commodity goods.

The state-owned enterprise and |marketing arm under the Commerce Ministry will refurbish its 200 PWO shops, which are alliance stores for the sale of rice and other commodities nationwide, by October.

It also plans to enhance storage efficiency and increase packing capacity in anticipation of the increased supply of rice entering the government's warehouses from the pledging project.

PWO president Anukul Tamprasirt said yesterday that the organisation would continue to improve as an efficient marketing arm for the government in response to the pledging project.

The rebranding of PWO shops will cost about Bt1 million per store. However, most of the spending will fall to the shop owners, which have contracted to sell goods supplied by the PWO.

Many goods will be available at the 200 stores, such as PWO packed rice, sugar, cooking oil and other commodities.

Anukul said the organisation would also increase its production capacity for packed rice to serve greater supply under the pledging scheme.

It currently has the capacity to pack about 1 million tonnes of rice a day. This is made up of two polishing and packaging plants, plus the PWO's contract millers and packers.

The PWO has 800 contract warehouses capable of stocking 9 million tonnes of |rice.

Anukul said the organisation would |propose that the new government build |rice silos to increase storage capacity and quality. These would absorb rice from the government's pledging programme, the quantity of which will increase in the |future.

Silos would be a highly efficient method of maintaining the quality of rice for longer than is the case with normal warehouses, he added.

Stockpiles

The government currently has about 2.1 million tonnes of rice in its stockpiles. It is projected that 8 million to 10 million tonnes of paddy rice will enter the government's warehouses under the pledging project this year.
A PWO study showed that a silo with a capacity to store 1 million tonnes of rice would cost an initial Bt1.2 billion.

Meanwhile, the PWO yesterday introduced a new brand of rice, Zakat al-fitr, for serving Muslim people making merit during Ramadan.

There are two kinds of Zakat al-fitr rice, which comes in 2.5-kilogram packs: jasmine rice, on sale at Bt85; and white rice, sold for Bt60.

The organisation hopes to sell 100,000 packs of the new brand during this |month.

Anukul said the PWO would also continue to introduce other new kinds of packed rice under its own brand, in order to release rice from the stockpiles and sell it at low prices directly to consumers.

The organisation currently has five kinds of rice under the PWO brand. The most popular is premium-grade jasmine rice, which is sold at Bt195 per 5-kilo bag, compared with Bt220 for other premium jasmine brands.

Source: The Nation