Illustrative image (Source: Reuters).This has been seen as a good opportunity forrice exporters from Thailand, Vietnam, India and Pakistan.
Thailand's National Food Authority (NFA) saidwill announce the bidding immediately after securing approval from the NFACouncil.
The first imported rice batches should arrive inlate June or early July.
The council will also finalise the import termsfor up to 805,000 tonnes of rice that local private traders will bring in underan annual quota scheme in order to ensure supply even during the typhoonseason.
The Philippine Government is shifting frombuying rice under government-to-government deals to ensure competitiveness andtransparency following accusations that some NFA officials were making moneyfrom such deals.
The Philippines' storm season typically peaks fromOctober to December with the strongest storms landing in, damaging thecountry's rice crops.
Government stockpiles are just enough to covereight days of national requirements. Meanwhile, the NFA is mandated to maintaina 15-day buffer stock at any given time and a minimum of 30 days during thelean harvest season from July to September.
The Thai government now controls 4.32 milliontonnes of state rice stocks and aims to dispose of it all by September thisyear, given rising rice demand.
Of the total, 2.5 million tonnes of low-qualityand decaying rice fit only for industrial use will no longer dampen the priceof newly harvested rice.
If the state succeeds in selling 1.82 milliontonnes of quality rice, the state rice stocks will drop sharply to only 2.5million tonnes.
Of the remainder, 2 million tonnes will serve asanimal feed and the rest will be used for energy production.
The Thai Foreign Trade Department is scheduledto hold an auction for 2 million tonnes in June and another for 500,000 tonnesin July. -VNA
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