More ways sought to prop up rubber prices in Thailand

BANGKOK, January 14 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives is finding more ways to help boost natural rubber prices to support local growers. Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Grisada Boonrach told journalists that he has sent an urgent order to Permanent Secretary for Agriculture and Cooperatives Lertviroj Kowattana, who is now Acting Governor of his ministry's Rubber Authority of Thailand (RAOT), and Thai agricultural attaches stationed in foreign countries to conduct their studies on whether locally-grown natural rubber could be used for the production of safety rolling barriers to prevent or reduce road accidents. The minister said the order was in response to recent research projects in many countries, including Canada, Australia, Korea, China, Malaysia and those in Europe, which initially showed that natural rubber could be used to produce innovative safety rolling barriers, in substitution of existing materials, which could ease the severity of any road accident by up to 94 per cent. Besides, his ministry is proposing to the government that locally-grown natural rubber be used to produce rubber sheets as part of rail tracks, instead of plastic sheets, suggesting that the proposal, if approved, would greatly boost sale, prices of natural rubber and income of local growers, while also sustaining the prices of natural rubber on the domestic market to be stable in the long run. The minister acknowledged the proposal was based on the fact that the Thai government is implementing new mega-rail investment projects, totally worth 2 trillion baht, and if locally-grown natural rubber would be used, as proposed, by at least 50 per cent of the new rail projects, it would definitely benefit local growers. (TNA)