Sixty-eight rice traders and millers yesterday tendered bids to buy 821,000 tonnes of rice from the Commerce Ministry. The rice offered at the auction includes 445,061 tonnes of 5% white rice and 376,333 tonnes of Hom Mali from the 2004-05 and 2005-06 crops.

The highest offers are 9,100 baht a tonne for 5% white rice and about 15,000 baht a tonne for fragrant rice quoted respectively by Eastern Rice Co, and CP Intertrade. Chia Meng also offered for US$280 a tonne for 5% white rice for export.

Apiradi Tantraporn, director-general of the ministry’s Foreign Trade Department, said the department would negotiate with bidders for better prices and those who won the bids for rice to be exported must ship out the grain within six months.

The trade source said if the ministry agreed with the results, it could earn revenue as high as 9.7 billion baht to the state. According to Mrs Apiradi, the ministry had called the first auction for 558,000 tonnes last month but about 300,000 tonnes were to be sold due to failed price negotiations.

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Posted: 10|3|07 at 8:18 am. Filed under: Auction News.