Thailand, the world's rice exporter, failed to sell 400,000 tonnes of white and fragrant rice from its stocks through a tender due to low bids, Commerce Minister Krik-Krai Jirapaet said on Friday.
"We don't need to sell that low," Krik-Krai told reporters.
The ministry would keep its stocks because it did not want to release more rice onto the market during the harvest which started in November and would put around 23.6 million tonnes of paddy onto the market, he said.
Thailand opened the tender early this week to sell 200,000 tonnes of white rice and 200,000 tonnes of fragrant rice.
But traders and exporters offered to buy only half of it.
The highest bid for white rice was 10,520 baht ($293.2) per tonne, a little below the market price of $305 per tonne.
The highest bid for fragrant rice was 14,100 baht ($393) per tonne, well under the market price of $485 per tonne.
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