The Thai government received bids from exporters for just 90,000 tonnes of rice in its first effort to sell grain from its huge stockpiles, far below the 350,000 tonnes on offer in the tender, a Commerce Ministry official said on Monday. The prices offered also fell well short of the price the government paid farmers to amass the stockpile in an intervention scheme to boost farm incomes, according to exporters who joined the tender.
The government, which has spent up to 600 billion baht ($19.3 billion) in buying rice since the intervention programme started in October 2011, has built up massive stockpiles and needs to sell some to make way for the next crop as well as to finance the scheme. "There was one exporter who offered to buy 30,000 tonnes of broken grade rice and three exporters who offered to buy a total 60,000 tonnes of 5 percent grade white rice," the government official said, asking not to be named.
The official declined to give details of the prices the exporters offered, but said the offers for the milled rice were below the 15,000 baht ($480) per tonne the government paid to farmers for their unmilled paddy. Exporters said they offered prices ranging between 11,500 and 12,500 baht per tonne, equivalent to $380-$420 per tonne, free on board (FOB). The Thai export price was quoted on Monday at $465 per tonne, which compares with $395-$400 for the equivalent grade from Vietnam.
Pranee Siriphan, head of the Commerce Ministry's Department of Foreign Trade, said the ministry would spend a few days negotiating for better prices before announcing tender results later this week. The government is offering 200,000 tonnes of unmilled rice in a tender on Tuesday and Pranee said there would be another tender for milled rice next week.