B1.67bn for rice barn loans okayed

B1.67bn for rice barn loans okayed

Bags of rice at a processing plant in Ayutthaya province. The latest round of loans are aimed at 10,000 borrowers. WALAILAK KEERATIPIPATPONG
Bags of rice at a processing plant in Ayutthaya province. The latest round of loans are aimed at 10,000 borrowers. WALAILAK KEERATIPIPATPONG

The government has approved credit worth 1.67 billion baht for farmers and agricultural institutes to build rice barns to help store rice, delaying paddy sales to stabilise rice prices.

Boonyarit Kalayanamit, director-general of the Internal Trade Department, said the national rice policy committee, chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, yesterday endorsed the loan scheme to build rice barns for farmers and agricultural institutes.

Of the loan amount, the state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) will offer 150,000 baht to each eligible farmer, and 3 million baht to each farm institute. The scheme targets 10,000 borrowers, while the government help subsidise 3% of the interest rate per year.

Mr Boonyarit said the committee yesterday also approved the plan to dispose of 2 million tonnes of state rice stocks within this year.

He insisted the disposal plan will not impact market prices as only 40,000 tonnes of the total are edible, with the rest are fit for animal feed production, and for fuel or energy production.

Adul Chotinisakorn, director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said recently authorities handling the rice sales will call bids on a gradual basis in May and June and possibly until September to sell existing stocks that are estimated at 2.04 million tonnes.

Of the total, 1.5 million tonnes are fit for animal feed production, and 500,000 tonnes are inedible for both humans and animals, and are only suitable for fuel or energy production. The remaining 40,000 tonnes were not accepted by the Department of Corrections or the winning bidders.

Since the May 2014 coup, a total of 14.8 million tonnes of state rice stocks have been sold through auctions, fetching 135 billion baht. Government-to-government rice deals have unloaded 3.44 million tonnes of newly-harvested grains, which were not a part of the rice stocks, worth 50.2 billion baht.

In a related development, the Thai Rice Exporters Association reported the country shipped 2.78 million tonnes of rice the first three months this year, fetching 44.09 billion baht. The volume increased 3.1% from the same period last year, while the value rose 9.5%.

Thailand was the world's rice top exporter for January to March, followed by India with 2.59 million tonnes (down 20.8%), Pakistan with 1.20 million tonnes (up 38.9%), Vietnam with 1.05 million tonnes (down 20.5%), and the US 830,000 tonnes (down 19.1%).

The association reported rice shipments dropped 9% in March to 864,938 tonnes, worth 13.78 billion baht, down 7.6% from the same month last year. The drop was largely due to lower purchase orders on relatively high rice prices.

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