Asian rice prices slip as Thailand offloads stocks

Asian rice prices slipped this week as a flood of supplies from Thailand depressed a market already hobbled by thin demand and ample supply, traders said on Thursday. Thailand, which has amassed massive rice stockpiles under a subsidy programme that paid farmers far above market rates, said earlier this month that it had sold a higher than targeted 730,000 tonnes of the grain from state warehouses to exporters.
The Southeast Asian country, the world's third-largest exporter of rice after India and Vietnam, is keen to release more stocks to get money to pay farmers who have been waiting for months after selling the grain to the state. These sales from stockpiles at below-market rates weighed on prices of the grain in Asia. Offers for the common grade Thai 5 percent broken rice dropped to $390-$400 per tonne on Thursday, on a free-on-board basis, down from last week's $410.
Vietnam rice prices also eased on rising supply, with offers for its 5-percent broken rice dropping to $385-$395 a tonne, from $390-$395 a week ago. "Prices fell on rising supply and the Thai rice stock sales also added pressure. I think the Philippine demand of 800,000 tonnes alone will not be able to help push up prices," a Bangkok-based trader said. The market is now closely monitoring the Philippines' plan to import rice via a tender set for April 15 to bolster stockpiles for the second half of the year when little of the staple grain is harvested locally. Vietnam and Thailand are likely to compete aggressively for any new deal.
"We are working on the detail of the tender as our priority is to sell as much as we can," said Surasak Riangkrul, head of Thailand Commerce Ministry's Department of Foreign Trade, which oversees the government rice stocks sale. Vietnam's 25-percent broken rice prices were however an exception, rising slightly to $365-$375 a tonne from $360-$370 last Wednesday, partly due to a state stockpiling plan and demand from China, traders said.
While the harvest from the Mekong Delta is at its peak, prices found some support as Vietnamese rice firms began buying winter-spring grain under a state-backed stockpiling plan, targeting paddy purchases of 2 million tonnes. Vietnam sees its winter-spring crop harvest rising about 3 percent year-on-year to nearly 11 million tonnes.