Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered nine state agencies to quickly buy local rubber worth 16.9 billion baht and followed up on exporters' planned fund to stabilise local rubber prices.
Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said on Saturday that the prime minister instructed the agencies to quickly withdraw the budget so that the purchases could be done within fiscal 2017 to help rubber farmers hard hit by a price slump.
The nine agencies are the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Defence Ministry, the Education Ministry, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Public Health Ministry, the Interior Minister, the Tourism and Sports Ministry, the Transport Ministry and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
They will buy 22,321 tonnes of latex and 2,953 tonnes of dried rubber for the production of weirs, pipes, bridge bearings, road joints, stable floors, futsal fields, boots and gloves, among others.
Lt Gen Sansern also said that the prime minister was also following up on the plan of the Rubber Authority of Thailand and five major rubber exporters to set up a fund to buy rubber from markets to stabilise local prices. Each party would invest 200 million baht in the fund.