By Piyarat Nisangkard
BANGKOK, Sept 19 (Bernama) — Thailand, one of three largest rubber producers in the world, is looking to resolve the issues of high rubber stockpile and low prices within 2-3 years.
“I think it will take 2-3 years to resolve all the rubber problems because it has been accumulated for a long time. I am pleased that (we) got the cooperation from rubber farmers on cutting rubber trees and delay rubber tapping,” said its Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha.
The low price of rubber resulted from many factors such as global economic situation and demand-supply management and all the problems would be resolved with short and long-term plans, he said in a media briefing after chairing the National Rubber Policy Committee meeting here today.
He is also the chairman of the committee, and is making efforts to tackle the problem as the national agenda to help the rubber farmers.
As for the management of the country’s rubber stockpile, he said the timing of its release into the market and volume would depend on the world market price.
He now sees the priority to implement zoning of rubber planting areas.
Prayuth said he assigned the Ministry of Commerce to inspect rubber plantation areas using satellite to determine whether the areas are in or out of the agricultural zone.
“Now, our problem is that the data (of rubber planting areas) does not match” he said.
Meanwhile, deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs Pridiyathorn Devakula said that there were 210,000 tonnes of government rubber stockpile currently.
It was not a big deal if compared with the rubber latex’s annual production of four million tonnes, he said.
He said Thailand was able to hold more rubber stockpile than the current figure, and whether the government would sell some of the stockpile depended on the price.
“We will sell if the price is good, we won’t sell if the price is low,” he said.
— BERNAMA
