The government has upgraded quality standards of Hom Mali fragrant rice in a move to highlight the identity of Thailand's premium long-grain fragrant rice.
Duangporn Rodphaya, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said the Hom Mali designation will apply only to grains that contain 92% or higher Hom Mali content from December onwards.
Grains with Hom Mali content of 80% or more, with amylose content of 20% or less, will be called Thai jasmine rice, Thai fragrant rice or Thai aromatic rice.
Ms Duangporn said the overhaul aims at upgrading Thai rice quality standards to comply with the current trading situation, which requires a diversity of rice products.
Charoen Laothamatas, president of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said better identification of rice quality will help boost exports, particularly to markets such as Africa, where purchasing power is not high.
"Over the past several years, we've lost aromatic rice market share to Vietnam and Cambodia, which export their aromatic rice at much cheaper prices in the name of 'jasmine rice', containing 60-80% of fragrant rice," he said
Mr Charoen predicts 9-9.5 million tonnes of Hom Mali production this year -- higher than the normal production of 8 million tonnes.
He voiced concerns that higher production may put downward pressure on Thai premium rice prices, now quoted at US$650 a tonne.
Mr Charoen said Thai rice prices have stabilised after reports that Thailand clinched a new government-to-government rice deal with China.
Thai officials and their Chinese counterparts signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in December 2014 for 1 million tonnes each of old and new rice, along with 200,000 tonnes of rubber. An agreement was signed late last year for the first 1 million tonnes.
Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said China and Thailand agreed on a new deal on Monday for the former to buy 100,000 tonnes as part of the remaining 1 million tonnes of new rice as stipulated in the MoU. Delivery on the new deal is slated for this month and November. The deal fetches Thailand a price of $394-399 a tonne, which is higher than current market prices of $332-335 a tonne.
Thailand has shipped 6.06 million tonnes of rice in the first eight months of this year, up 2.9% from the same period last year, with value amounting to $2.72 billion, a 1.4% increase.