Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom has ordered officials to speed up the delivery at least 2 million tonnes of rice to foreign buyers by year-end.

The consignments are all government-to-government contracts, part of the 7.32 million tonnes of rice Mr Boonsong claims he sold to China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Ivory Coast and Ghana recently.

The delivery of all grains will be completed by mid-2013, he said. That is six months faster than he suggested at a press briefing last week.

The government is desperate to unload rice, as the pledging programme has raised stocks to 12 million tonnes of milled rice, said Mr Boonsong.

Some 260,000 tonnes were sold to the private sector and 797,000 tonnes to various government agencies.

The Commerce Ministry yesterday also called a new bid to sell 586,000 tonnes of rice left over from last month's tenders, in which only 229,661 tonnes were sold.

Nine exporters and traders joined yesterday's bids including leading exporters Asia Golden Rice, Capital Rice, Chia Meng and CP Intertrade.

Manat Soiploy, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, expects traders will offer high prices considering strong market demand.

He said Mr Boonsong will make a final decision after the bidding committee selects the winners tomorrow.

However, the minister said he will reject the bids if the prices are not high enough. The ministry earned 3.97 billion baht from 229,661 tonnes of rice tenders last week.

Source: Bangkok Post