Rice exports from Thailand may be steady next year, as the world’s biggest shipper taps state inventories to offset a possible decline in production amid dry weather.
Shipments may be close to 10 million metric tonnes, matching the government target for 2015, Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn said in an interview on 2 October. The country plans to sell all of its 13 million tonnes in state reserves by the end of next year, most of which are of food-grade quality, she added.
The Southeast Asian nation, which accounts for about a quarter of the global trade, is maintaining sales even as water shortages across the country’s central plain are poised to reduce harvests to the lowest in almost two decades. World output will drop for the first time since 2009-10, while demand expands for a sixth year, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Futures in Chicago rose to a 14-month high last month.
“Next year, we may not have an abundant crop like this year,” said Apiradi. That shouldn’t cause a problem, as the government will release the grain in stockpiles, and there is a new crop coming on to the market, she added.
Output of rough rice may decline to as low as 22.98 million tonnes in 2015-16, the least since 1996-97, assuming that there is no planting during the dry season, starting in November, Thailand’s Office of Agricultural Economics said in September. That’s down 30 per cent from 32.62 million tonnes a year earlier.
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