The Foreign Trade Department will auction off 450,000 tonnes of rice on Wednesday and about 220,000 tonnes on Thursday on the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET).
The government plans to release up to one million tonnes of rice each month, so after the auction of 450,000 tonnes on Wednesday, auctions will beheld for stocks in provinces such as Chiang Rai and Nakhon Sawan, FTD director-general Surasak Riangkrul said.
On Thursday, the AFET auction will comprise 139,000 tonnes of 5% white rice pledged during the 2012/2013 crop year, and around 80,300 tonnes of second grade fragrant rice from the same season.
Mr Surasak said nine or 10 countries had approached the department about buying rice, so 4-5 million tonnes could be off loaded from the government’s stockpile.
Thailand exported some 2.2 million tonnes of rice in the first three months of 2014, up 43% from the same period last year, based on data from the Thai Rice Exporters Association.