The government is upbeat about achieving 11 million tonnes of rice shipments this year, predicting exports of as much as 900,000 tonnes a month for the remainder of 2018.
Foreign Trade Department director-general Adul Chotinisakorn said yesterday that as of Wednesday the country had exported 6.79 million tonnes of rice, up 1.8% from the same period last year, with 5% white rice making up 55% of the total, followed by parboiled rice at 25%, hom mali jasmine rice at 16% and other types making up the remainder.
Export value for the period totalled US$2.87 billion (95.5 billion baht), up 9.9%.
"We expect Thailand's rice exports will remain in good shape in this half of the year, as foreign purchase demand is strong, particularly from Asia and Africa," Mr Adul said. "The department itself is revving up talks with China to sign a deal to buy an additional 1 million tonnes of rice this year as part of an investment package between the two countries that includes the initial high-speed rail project."
Thai officials and their Chinese counterparts signed a memorandum of understanding in December 2014 for 1 million tonnes each of old and new grains, along with the 200,000 tonnes of rubber.
Thailand has already signed another 1-million-tonne contract, to be delivered this year.
According to Mr Adul, the department's officials are scheduled to speak with China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (Cofco), China's state enterprise that supervises the mainland's annual rice import quotas, to follow up on an additional rice purchase deal on Aug 26.
Negotiations with Cofco are expected to be concluded soon and an agreement with China is likely to be signed this year, Mr Adul said.
According to Mr Adul, the Philippines is also likely to soon announce a new rice bid for 500,000 tonnes, 250,000 tonnes of which will be done under a government-to-government (G2G) contract and 250,000 tonnes from the private sector.
Iraq is also offering to buy rice from Thailand under a G2G contract through the Foreign Ministry.
In addition, he said officials are also scheduled to hold trade missions to promote speciality rice such as organic and coloured rice in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.
In a related development, Mr Adul said that during Aug 3-Sept 2 the Commerce Ministry and the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry will survey rice plantations in 16 provinces before production forecasts for the 2018-19 main crop.