The ministry has not yet decided how it will manage its stockpile of 400,826 tonnes of jasmine rice, which is ready for sale. In total, it holds about 900,000 tonnes of jasmine rice, but 500,000 tonnes of it is being held in warehouses awaiting surveys to determine its quality.

The ministry's permanent secretary, Karun Kittisataporn, said the ministry was considering using other methods to release its rice stocks after finding that buyers seem to collude to depress prices.

 He refused to elaborate on other methods under consideration, but said some rice might be used for barter trading.

"The government is not worried about the rice stocks because there are many ways of managing it. If private companies seem to force the price down, we will drop the bidding method," Karun said.

The ministry made a telephone call yesterday to CP Intertrade, the exporter that offered the highest bid in the first round, and asked the company to raise its offer. CP Intertrade responded with a new price only slightly higher than its original offer of US$435 (Bt16,954) per tonne.

Eight exporters took part in the bidding, through which the Commerce Ministry had hoped to receive at least $440 (Bt17,091) per tonne for a total of 200,826 tonnes of jasmine rice.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party called on the Commerce Ministry yesterday to take legal action against 57 warehouses involved in the jasmine rice quality scandal.

The Democrats' deputy spokesman, Yutthapong Charasathien, delivered a letter concerning what it called the scandal of the rice-pledging programme to deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, who is chairman of the Rice Policy Committee.

Yutthapong said the 57 warehouses were involved in combining rice of lesser quality with jasmine rice during the 2004-2005harvest season. About 500,000 tonnes of the rice is now being investigated for possible contaminated because of the combination problem and cannot be released to the market.

Petchanet Pratruangkrai

The Nation