Handling of rice and inflation criticised
By Post reporters
Economic experts yesterday slammed the government's poor economic performance, zeroing in on its handling of rice prices and inflation. The criticisms came as a fresh rice-pledging scheme kicks off today.
The Commerce Ministry and the Bank of Thailand were at the centre of criticism at a forum marking the 59th anniversary of the establishment of Thammasat University's economics faculty.
Ammar Siamwalla, an honorary economist for the Thailand Development Research Institute and a rice policy expert, said the rice policy lacked direction.
To illustrate his points, he singled out the government's Blue Flag campaign to offer low-priced rice to consumers, which was quickly scrapped, and the rice export policy brought in.
''People are confused as to whether the government wants to sell rice or not. Rice exporters do not know what the government plans for them,'' he said.
''The government rushes to launch a new rice-pledging scheme just because the rice price drops from 15,000 baht to 12,000-13,000 baht per tonne, which is not low at all.''
Mr Ammar said previous governments would slap export taxes on rice to protect domestic supplies when problems arose.
He also took the government to task for having the Commerce Ministry, which is in charge of macro economics, handle inflation instead of the central bank.
''I do not know what has happened to the central bank. It has barely addressed inflation policy. What it does is to make inflation predictions. That's incomprehensible,'' he said.
Mr Ammar said the government lacked a clear economic policy and so far had not come up with a viable approach to manage the economy.
He blamed the Samak cabinet's poor economic performance on a hidden agenda of whitewashing the Thaksin administration.
Former deputy prime minister M.R. Pridiyathorn Devakula agreed with Mr Ammar's views about the government's handling of the rice issue.
He said the government's policy seemed to get off track, citing its initiatives to give people on low incomes coupons to buy food and other basic necessities and to allocate one million rai of unused land from state agencies to poor farmers.
The criticism came only one day before the government starts a fresh rice-pledging scheme today.
Last week, the cabinet allocated 25 billion baht for the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) to buy up to 2.5 million tonnes of rice paddy from farmers.
Rice millers in Ayutthaya yesterday cast doubts over the new scheme, saying the requirements for joining are high and the procedures are unclear.
Prasert Bamrungpol, the president of Ayutthaya's rice millers association, said rice millers are required to pay a cash deposit of 20% of their quota of 1,000 tonnes, or about 2.7 million baht, and they must have their own stocks of paddy rice of 500 tonnes, worth about seven million baht.
He said several rice millers were strapped for cash. ''Where do rice millers find 10 million baht for this?'' he asked.
''Without money, they cannot join the rice-pledging scheme.''
He said about 11 rice mills in the province have signed up for the programme, but only one can buy rice when the scheme gets under way today.
In Chiang Rai, rice farmers are threatening to set up roadblocks tomorrow if rice millers fail to pay for their rice, worth about 40 million baht.
According to farmer leaders, the rice farmers sold the grain to millers in the Central Plains last month as advised by the Commerce Ministry's Internal Trade Department and the governor, but they have yet to get their money.
If the money is not transferred into their accounts tomorrow, they will immediately gather in front of the Phan district office and may set up roadblocks.
Internal Trade Department chief Yanyong Puangrat said the Commerce Ministry acts as coordinator in the rice-pledging scheme, while the BAAC is directly in charge.
He said he has also ordered officials to closely monitor 21 million tonnes of rice after 288 tonnes of paddy from government warehouses went missing.
About 13,000 tonnes of milled rice were estimated to be missing from the 2.1 million tonnes of official stockpiles.
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