Five Asean rice-producing countries are likely to resume efforts at collaboration, but the private sector still doubts whether coordination can be achieved due to the great differences between the countries.

The leaders of Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar discussed the issue at a summit held last week in Phnom Phen, according to Srirat Rastapana, director-general of the Trade Negotiations Department.

There were no details on possible cooperation, though Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed a willingness to take up the issue. Cambodia hosts the Asean Summit this year.

Mrs Srirat said negotiations are likely to be undertaken at the bilateral level first. Thailand will soon hold bilateral meetings on this issue with the four countries.

Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said the private sector believed that five-country cooperation on rice was difficult as the issue was usually raised for political purposes, and that there was no follow-through, especially on the trading of rice, because local conditions in each country are so different.

For example, Vietnam has insufficient warehouse space and high interest rates, so it is difficult for the country to stock rice for later sales. As a result, Vietnam has to sell rice at low prices.

Thailand, on the other hand, has sufficient warehouse space while the government has a budget of hundreds of billions of baht to buy rice and keep it in stock. "It's impossible to have cooperation," Mr Chookiat said.

Earlier this year, Vietnam tried to raise the price of its rice, but it eventually had to lower the price to compete with India.

Mr Chookiat said cooperation might be accomplished through technical agreements and knowledge transfer.

He added that in Thailand there is a great deal of policy uncertainty as the government frequently changes, and this leads to a lack of confidence in Thailand's positions on the part of other countries.

He predicted that Thailand was likely to export around 550,000 tonnes of rice in April due to India's difficulty in delivering parboiled rice to Nigeria. The African country announced it would increase its rice import tariff in June, prompting local importers to speed up their rice imports and making India, the main parboiled rice exporter to Nigeria, unable to deliver in time.

because Nigeria may wants to avoid the high import tariff India plans to impose in June.

However, rice exports are likely to drop in May to a range of 400,000 to 450,000 tonnes due to lower exports of parboiled rice.

Mr Chookiat said the price of Thai rice was still around US$80 to $100 higher than Vietnamese rice.

He predicted that India would be able to export its rice continuously over the next six months.

From the beginning of this year through March 26, Thailand shipped 1.445 million tonnes of rice, down 49.2% year-on-year.

Source: Bangkok Post