Thailand’s Cabinet approved a plan yesterday to dip into the government’s rice stockpile to help keep domestic prices low as global food prices surge.
Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej said it would start selling 5kg bags of rice at 170 baht (US$5.37) each, compared with the current market price of about 200 baht.
“We will start in about two weeks,” Samak said, but without specifying how much of the country’s 2.1 million tonne stockpile would be sold to consumers. He also did not comment on who would qualify for the subsidized price.
Samak said the government would buy rice from farmers to refill the stockpile.
“This should help bring down the overall market price for consumers,” he said.
The government purchases rice for its reserves to help sustain prices when they are low.
In a bid to allay fears that the country would curb exports to meet local demand, Commerce Minister Mingkwan Saengsuwan said on Monday that Thailand was not suffering a rice shortage and will continue to export the grain.
Some Asian countries, including India and Vietnam, have curbed rice exports to guarantee their own supplies.
Mingkwan said the country was on target to ship 9 million tonnes of rice overseas this year.
Separately, World Bank president Robert Zoellick urged countries yesterday not to use export bans on food produce to deal with the food crisis.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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