The Commerce Ministry will open bidding for about 500,000 tonnes of rice to general traders within two weeks to accelerate the clearing out of government stocks and contribute cash to the country's coffers.

Meanwhile, a National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) panel looking into the rice-pledging scheme will soon summon Supa Piyajitti, who heads a ministry subcommittee handling the accounting associated with the scheme, to give a statement about alleged corruption in the project.

The rice inventory would be released widely to both millers and exporters. On sale would be milled rice and paddy rice for producing parboiled rice, due to expected high demand during the second half of the year.

After discussions with the Thai Rice Millers Association yesterday, Commerce Minister Nivatthamrong Boonsongpaisal said the ministry would need to try to trim its huge rice stocks as soon as possible.

Since demand from exporters and millers for government rice was strong, finding takers for the 500,000 tonnes of both paddy and milled rice should not be too difficult.

Exporters and millers interested in the paddy rice have to show that they already have orders from overseas to ensure that the rice would be parboiled for export. This condition would prevent millers or rice buyers from re-selling the rice they buy to the government under the pledging scheme.

After the first lot, the ministry will consider its options judging from the response in the world market. The ministry would like to sell rice to traders more frequently, focusing on exports.

However, some lots would be reserved for domestic consumption, he said.

Deputy Commerce Minister Yanyong Phuangrach said the ministry plans to release about 7 million-8 million tonnes of paddy for parboiled rice during the rest of the year, as this is the suitable period to export more parboiled rice. Normally, parboiled rice would be in high demanded in Africa and the Middle East. The price should be quite good and not cause huge losses for the government.

The Thai Rice Exporters Association's data showed that as of June 26, Thai parboiled rice for export was quoted at US$548 (about Bt17,000) a tonne versus $430 for Indian parboiled rice. The quote for 5-per-cent Thai white rice was $522 a tonne.

The government's rice would be sold at a price in line with the market price. However, the government would need to shoulder some losses since the cost was high due to the pledging scheme. But if the price proposed by bidders is too low, the government would not sell the rice.

The next auction would be transparent to all involved and opened widely to public scrutiny, the deputy minister said.

The ministry was cooperating with millers to set up an online system to prevent corruption and ensure clarity in the process, he said.

The ministry estimates that 2.69 million tonnes of paddy would enter the government's pledging project until September 15, so the government would need Bt40 billion to pay for the paddy at the pledging price of Bt15,000 a tonne.

To drum up business overseas and tighten cooperation with other rice-exporting countries, missions would be sent to those countries to promote rice sales to their governments and their private importers.

Countries such as Vietnam, India, Cambodia and Myanmar would also be encouraged to focus on sustainable rice selling in order to provide their farmers a steady income, he added.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday challenged a senior official tasked with handling the government's controversial rice-pledging scheme to hand over any evidence of corruption in the process to her, instead of making public statements over the issue.

Yingluck said the government was compiling statistics on the pledged-rice stockpiles in government and private hands. She said these would be "real statistics", while describing as "figurative details" the Bt220-billion loss figure for the scheme provided by deputy Finance Ministry permanent secretary Supa Piyajitti. Supa heads a ministry subcommittee handling the accounting associated with the rice-pledging scheme.

Asked about the government’s U-turn on the reduction in the minimum per-tonne price guarantee from Bt15,000 to Bt12,000 for pledged rice, Yingluck said the government was balancing several key factors, adding that the subsidised minimum price could be increased in the future depending on global rice prices.

An NACC panel looking into the rice scheme would soon summon Supa to get her testimony on alleged corruption. NACC member Vicha Manakhun said the Commerce Ministry was now cooperating with the panel - something Vicha said the ministry should have done from the beginning. The Ombudsman's Office will also make inspections of several warehouses to find out whether official malfeasance had led to cheating or the spoiling of rice.

Thailand Development Research Institute honorary scholar Ammar Siamwalla said rice to be exported must be freshly harvested from current and future crops. He said 17 million tonnes in the government stockpile "could be forgotten forever", because buyers would not want it following reports of it having rotted, being of low quality, or having been exposed to excessive amounts of pesticide.

He said stockpiling rice for too long - more than two years - would only result in the crop deteriorating, prompting traders to reject it.

Source: The Nation