BANGKOK: Rubber stocks held by the Thai government stood at 170,000 tonnes as of Tuesday and are expected to rise substantially over the next few months as the government is about to step up its buying, the deputy agriculture minister said.
“Official data shows that our stocks are at 170,000 tonnes of smoked rubber sheets and we have no plan to release the stocks until the buying scheme expires at end-March,” Yuthapong Charassathien told Reuters.
The Ministry of Agriculture planned to ask for cabinet approval next week to spend 25 billion baht ($814.60 million) to buy more rubber and rent a private warehouse with capacity to store another 240,000 tonnes, said Chanachai Plengsiriwat, the head of the Rubber Estate Organisation (REO)
“Total capacity of all warehouses would be 410,000 tonnes, the amount that we expect to buy from farmers by the time the scheme expires,” Chanachai told Reuters.
Source: Brecorder
