Thailand's caretaker government speeds up rice selling

BANGKOK, February 22 (TNA) - In an attempt to assist farmers who have not yet received payments from their rice sold to the government's rice-pledging scheme, Caretaker Deputy Commerce Minister Yanyong Phuangrach has announced that the caretaker government will sell more than 700,000 tonnes of rice next week, with proceeds to be paid to the affected farmers. Under the plan, Yanyong said, the caretaker government will sell rice amounting 500,000 tonnes through a bidding and more than 200,000 tonnes, including white rice and "Hom Mali" or fragrant rice harvested in the 2013/2014 season, through the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET). Yanyong estimated that the caretaker government could sell not less than one million tonnes of rice monthly, from February 2014 onwards, and could send money amounting 10 billion baht a month to concerned government agencies responsible for the rice-pledging programme. Yanyong acknowledged that the caretaker government will, probably, stop buying rice from farmers under the programme as of February 28, 2014 because it is only the caretaker administration and it has to wait for a new government to decide whether to continue the programme. Earlier in the day, Yanyong inspected rice in government stocks at two warehouses in Nakhon Chaisri District of Nakhon Pathom Province in the central region to make sure that its volume and the quality remain unchanged.(TNA)