Thai rice exports likely to reach 8.5m tons this year

BANGKOK, September 15 (TNA) - Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom says he foresees that Thai rice exports this year should reach some 8.5 million tons. Speaking during Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's live week talk program in Thailand's southern resort Krabi Province Saturday morning, Boonsong acknowledged that Thailand has normally exported 8.5-9 million tons of grains annually over the past decade, with Thai rice exports even peaked last year at 10 million tons. According to the commerce minister, experts have predicted Thai rice exports to reach 5-6 million tons this year and the local private sector has projected at 6.5 million tons, but his ministry has set the figure at 8.5 million tons instead, taking the amounts of rice stocks and export trend of other rival countries into consideration. The commerce minister explained that the local private sector has estimated its overall rice export at about 6.5 million tons; while the Thai government will export two more million tons of rice under government-to-government deals; so, the total Thai rice export in 2012 should reach the targeted 8.5 million tons. The commerce minister also expressed confidence that Thailand will maintain a prestigious status as the world's largest rice exporter by value although the amount may drop by a certain extent, as the average price of Thai grains is at about 650 US dollars per ton now, compared with 580-590 US dollars per ton in previous years. The commerce minister insisted that Thai rice farmers need higher prices to improve their living conditions and quality of life. Meanwhile, Atikom Terbsiri, President of IRPC Public Company Limited, assessed that money injection under the United States' ongoing third round of quantitative easing or QE3 should be done more directly to consumers than in the past two rounds when money had been channelled through financial institutes. Besides, the US Federal Reserve or FED has announced to keep its key interest rate low until 2015; so, he believes that liquidity will increase in the United States, which will contribute to the global economy and even Thai exports, as the United States is a world largest market. (TNA)