The government's latest effort to sell its rice stocks through the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand (AFET) attracted up to 19 potential buyers, the Bangkok Post reports.

Wichai Nawakul, vice-president of the Thai Rice Millers Association, attributed the good response mainly to new grains put up for auction and more flexible conditions.

The new conditions do not stipulate that rice bought by the winners must be slated either for export or domestic sales.

The government has also provided a guarantee of rice quality and supplies, making bidders more confident.

The government on January 22 put up 148,940 tonnes of rice stocks from seven state warehouses in five provinces for sale through AFET.

Of the total, 110,480 tonnes are 5% white rice available from the 2012-13 season and 2013-14 new harvest, while 38,460 tonnes are 100% grade B Hom Mali rice from the 2013-14 harvest.

A total of 27 interested participants including exporters, millers and packed-rice manufacturers registered to participate in the auction on January 22, but only 19 were qualified.

Names of the buyers participating in the selling plan are likely to be revealed next week, with delivery due in March, April and May.

This is the fourth batch the government has sold through AFET. It sold 110,000 out of 400,000 tonnes put up for sale in the previous three auctions.

AFET is now considered one of the key channels for the government to dispose of its rice stocks to raise proceeds to honour its payments to farmers under the rice pledging scheme.

The Yingluck Shinawatra-led government plans to sell 500,000 to 1 million tonnes through AFET.

The caretaker government is struggling to find funds to pay pledged money to one million rice farmers who participated in the main 2013-14 crops after the scheme accumulated huge losses.



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