The rubber industry will today ask the government to compensate farmers for a market price below Bt60 per kilogram after initially seeking compensation for prices below Bt80.
The news comes as the government has revealed that it believes a planned rally by rubber farmers in Phatthalung on Friday in response to falling rubber prices is not an attempt to put pressure on the government but merely an information-gathering exercise.
Domestic rubber prices range between Bt35-37 per kg compared to a peak of almost Bt180 over the past few years.
“If the rubber market price is Bt45 per kg, the government will have to compensate farmers for the Bt15 gap. If the price is Bt60 or higher, the government has no need to subsidise,” said Manoon Ouppala, chairman of a network of rubber planters in Surat Thani.
He believed that farmers, including tappers, could survive amid the current economic situation with sufficient government support.
As such, a network of 35 rubber planting organisations will today submit a letter to the National Council for Peace and Order via the Surat Thani governor, asking for compensation for prices below Bt60.
Manoon said that if the government set a compensation budget of Bt9 billion that would provide great relief to the industry. “There won’t be any more protests by rubber planters,” Manoon said.
In response to Friday’s planned protest, Government Spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd yesterday said the Prayut administration was ready to listen to all parties in a bid to reverse the falling prices and stabilise the market price at Bt60 per kg.
“It’s hardly possible to shore up the rubber price to reach Bt80 per kg, and we have to be concerned about the world market price,” Sansern said.
The northern planters’ network said Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha had not acknowledged the real cost of production, which had been affected by the daily minimum wage rising to Bt300.
The production cost had climbed to Bt64.50 per kg as a result, it said. Vietnam’s minimum daily wage was the equivalent of Bt120, Indonesia’s Bt80 and Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia’s Bt40, said Weerasak Sinuwong, public relations director for the board of the Rubber Planters Network of Thailand.
Weerasak said Thailand also had a limited rubber-price ceiling after signing an agreement with the Chinese government to sell China 400,000 tonnes of rubber at Bt60 per kg.
Under the terms of the contract, this had to be delivered in 18 months. Weerasak said the government had killed farmers by setting the price at Bt60 per kg because the production cost was Bt64.50 per kg. In order to make a 30-per-cent profit,
the price should be Bt94.50, he said.
– nationmultimedia.com
