Thailand's rice exports on the rise

BANGKOK, August 16 (TNA) - The Thai Ministry of Commerce reports that the country's exports of rice have been expanding in all markets so far this year, with more shipments set in the coming months. Adul Chotinisakorn, Director-General of the ministry's Department of Foreign Trade, told journalists of the information on August 15, stating that Thailand's exports of rice from January 1 to August 14, 2018 stood at 6.99 million tons, totally worth about 3.52 billion US dollars or about 111.99 billion baht, an increase of 2 per cent and 19.15 per cent year-on-year in terms of the greenback and the Thai currency respectively. Adul stressed that shipments of Thai rice to such major markets as neighboring countries in the ASEAN Community (AC), as well as those in North America, Latin America, Europe and Africa have all been expanding, with white rice topping the shipment list at 51 per cent, followed by parboiled rice and fragrant rice, or Hom Mali rice, at 25 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. According to the senior official, Thailand is gradually delivering another 120,000 tons of rice to the Philippines based on a government-to-government (G-to-G) contract, expected to be completed by the end of this month, excluding the other large lot of about 212,500 tons the Thai private sector is obliged to deliver to the Philippine government by the end of this month. The senior official said the Thai government is, meanwhile, promoting and supporting local farmers and rice exporters to produce and export more value-added rice with higher market demand, namely healthy, polish brown varieties of grains, in order to enhance their income security on the sustainable basis, noting that Thailand's exports of such the value-added grains have sound prospect particularly in the European Union (EU), the United States, Hong Kong and Singapore. (TNA)