The Ministry of Commerce has invited over 300 rice and cassava buyers from around the world and signed major purchase agreements with buyers from Hong Kong.
Buyers from 41 countries took part in the ministry’s business-matching event at Bangkok’s Centara Grand Hotel. Several deals with a combined value of 135 million baht were successfully brokered with Hong Kong buyers for orders of 100 tons of Gaba rice, 600 tons of noodles, and 400 tons of rice berry. Hong Kong buyers also agreed to purchase 800,000 tons of cassava products for over 950 million baht.
Meanwhile, Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn revealed that the price of jasmine rice has stabilized and will increase, should Thailand find more sales channels abroad. She expects the current business-matching event to successfully close over 63 billion baht in business dealings, consisting of approximately 28 billion baht in rice deals and 35 billion baht in cassava deals. Her ministry also plans to establish a rice exchange to facilitate the country’s domestic and international trade.
Rice exports this year are expected to exceed the ministry’s target of 9.5 million tons.
