Thai rice exports to gain from India’s failing monsoons.
India’s failing monsoons might be a gain for Thailand’s rice producing industry. The Southeast Asian country plans to reoccupy the number one position in the rice export business as India’s feeble climatic conditions have impacted its rice farming.
The rice paddies which are sown in the summer months, need a good rainfall for growth, however, India’s scanty monsoon advancement has hit the crop’s output. According to experts, rice outputs are 40% below average in the first six weeks of the June-September monsoon season.
A drop in India’s rice exports would give Thailand an open opportunity to up it’s exports and win better prices for its grains. Kiattisak Kallayasirivat, Managing Director of Bangkok-based Novel Agritrading Co Ltd said, “It is a good opportunity for Thailand to manage its huge stocks at competitive prices.”
Thailand is aiming to export at least 500,000-600,000 tonnes of rice from the month of August 2014. India had outrun Thailand as a rice exporter in 2012 after the intervention scheme priced Thailand produced rice out of the export market, also, the Indian government by then had lifted its four-year ban on non-basmati rice sales in 2011.
The 2014 June quarter saw India exporting 1 million tonnes of non-basmati rice which is an estimated fall of 30 percent compared to last year. 8.64 million hectares of rice paddy has been been sown as of July 11, 2014, as opposed to 11 million hectares last year.
Photo Credits: imagesia
