The Thai Government has approved to add another 1.9 billion THB (60.9
million USD) to its fund for the rice pledging scheme, according to
National News Bureau of Thailand (NNT).
National News Bureau of Thailand quoted Deputy Spokesperson of the Prime
Minister’s Office Pakdeharn Himathongkham as saying that this amount is
separated from an earlier approved budget of 500 billion THB set for
the 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 harvest seasons.
The scheme aims to support Thai farmers by paying them more for rice than it is worth on international markets.
The amount of rice-buying under this scheme has so far reached 899,000 tonnes, he added.
According
to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, the country shipped 501,600
tonnes of rice in September, a year-on-year increase of 27.2 percent.
However, the export of this commodity in the nine-month period was down
1.8 percent from a year earlier to 4.6 million tonnes.-VNA