Thai Cabinet nods for palm oil imports

BANGKOK, January 20 (TNA) - The Cabinet has approved Thailand's imports of 50,000 tonnes of palm oil to ensure sufficient supply for domestic consumption. The Cabinet made the decision at its weekly meeting at Bangkok's Government House on Tuesday, as proposed by the National Palm Oil Policy Committee, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan. Under the Cabinet's resolution, the Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO) is authorised to import the 50,000 tonnes of of palm oil in a shortest and quickest period of time, by the middle of February 2015, and to then set the retail price of bottled palm oil at 42 baht per unit on local shelves. A meeting of the National Palm Oil Policy Committee on January 19 agreed that imports of only small amount of palm oil in a short period of time would not affect domestic production of palm oil, urging local oil palm growers not to be worried. The Office of Agricultural Economics said that domestic oil palm and palm oil produce has declined since mid-2012, causing rising prices of the products since late last year. Wisarn Janthip, manager of a palm oil farmer cooperative in Krabi Province in the Thai South, told reporters, in the meantime, that he supports the government's policy on importing 50,000 tonnes of raw palm oil to ensure sufficient supply for domestic consumption, urging, however, that the imports should be finished as soon as possible to prevent local growers from a trouble of a lower oil palm nut price. Wisarn pointed out once the government announced the policy on palm oil imports, the oil palm nut price on the domestic market immediately dropped from 6 to 5.80 baht per kilogramme, cautioning that the oil palm nut price was likely to further fall, probably below five baht per kilogramme, which would certainly trouble local oil palm growers, unless the government finished the imports quickly. Wisarn assessed that local oil palm nut yields would increase in March- April 2015. Meanwhile, Santichai Sarntawanpat, Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Commerce's Department of Internal Trade, assured that there is sufficient palm oil supply for domestic consumption as the Cabinet has approved the imports of 50,000 tonnes of palm oil, calling for the public not to be worried or hoard cooking palm oil. (TNA)