Charoen Laothammatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said Thailand will certainly reach its 11 million-tonne rice export target by the end of the year.
Thailand has so far averaged 1 million tonnes in rice exports over the past two months.
Reaching the 11 million-tonne target is achievable, he says, because China, the Philippines and Malaysia will continually see import demand and the rice deliveries under government-to-government and private contracts will continue through the remaining months. While the volume of parboiled rice exports increased in South Africa and Benin, the volume of Thai Hom Mali rice exports to US, Hong Kong and China increased.
In the first 10 months, Thailand exported 9.049 million tonnes, up by 0.3% and valued at US$4.567 billion (150 billion baht). This is also an 8.2% increase compared with the same period last year. Rice exports in October were down 5.6% to 927,526 tonnes, valued at 15.03 billion baht. They were also down 1.6% compared with the same period last year, as a result of a decrease in Thai parboiled rice exports from September.
In October, the association reported Thailand exported 233,245 of parboiled rice, especially to main markets including South Africa, Benin and Cameroon, down 33.7% compared with September.
White rice volume was measured at 521,251 tonnes to Asian and African markets such as China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique and Benin, up 7.9% from September. The export volume of Thai Hom Mali rice was up 26.9% to 97,567 tonnes due to an increase in crop production. The export markets for the product are the US, Hong Kong, China and Canada, Mr Charoen said.
The trend of the price of rice has not changed by more than 5% in the last year, and has been sold at $368-407 per tonne. Meanwhile, the Department of Foreign Trade said orders for Thai rice exports increased by 324,000 tonnes in the past two months.
In November, China bought 100,000 tonnes from Thailand, according to a 1 million-tonne government-to-government agreement. Thailand also won a contract to export 80,000 tonnes to the Philippines, while private companies won another bid to export 144,000 tonnes.