DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

  Thailand's domestic and export prices of white rice and parboiled rice
declined 3-6 percent as the current MY2008/09 intervention program ended.
Market prices will likely continue to trend lower in anticipation of the
government stock release, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture attache
report posted Thursday on the Foreign Agricultural Services Web site.

  Estimates contained in attache reports aren't official USDA data. The text of
the attache report follows.

  Market Tone

  Domestic and export prices of white rice declined 3-6 percent as the current
MY2008/09 second-crop intervention program ended (July 31). The program bought
5.1 million tons of paddy (out of the target of 6.0 million tons) worth nearly
60 billion baht ($1.8 billion), of which 4.4 million tons are white rice paddy.
Farm gate prices of white rice paddy dropped significantly at the end of the
program. However, foreign demand for Thai white rice remains quiet as
Vietnamese prices are $150/MT cheaper. In addition, export prices of parboiled
rice declined significantly as large-volume contracts for Nigeria reportedly
have been met. Also, the Commerce Ministry's plan to release intervention stock
of white rice paddy for parboiled rice production has a psychological impact on
domestic parboiled rice prices despite the fact that most paddy under the
intervention program is milled.

  Under the Price Insurance scheme which will replace mortgage scheme in the
new intervention program for MY2009/10 main crop, insured prices of white rice
paddy were set at 10,000 baht/ton ($296/MT) (based on average production cost
with profit margin of 30 percent), as compared to intervention prices in the
previous mortgage scheme at 10,800 - 12,000 baht/ton ($319-354/MT). Meanwhile,
the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives is reviewing insured prices for
fragrant rice paddy which are expected to be based on profit margin of 10-20
percent. Market prices will likely trend downward in anticipation of the
government stock release. The Government is inspecting quality of rice in the
intervention stocks to set benchmark prices for this month's stock release. As
of the end of July, outstanding intervention rice stocks are estimated at 7-8
million tons of rice, of which 1.6 million tons are old-crop intervention
stocks (mostly MY2007/08 crops).

  The following are the reported rice exports (as is basis):

  Note on data: Export figures since March 22, 2002, do not include fragrant
rice. The authority to report fragrant rice exports was moved from the Thai
Board of Trade to the Ministry of Commerce's Office of Commodity Standards,
which does not release official fragrant rice export data. FAS/BKK will report
only official export numbers from the Board of Trade for non-fragrant and from
the Office of Commodity Standards for fragrant rice when available, but the
reader should bear in mind the difference between the data.

  Unofficial exports (excluding fragrant rice) for Jul. 27 - Aug. 2, 2009
totaled 111,845 tons, up 12,786 ton from the previous week, and up 5,019 tons
from the four-week moving average of 106,826 tons. Exports during Jan. 1 - Aug.
2 totaled 3,472,694 tons, as compared with 5,299,761 tons in the previous year.

  According to the Department of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Commerce, total
rice exports (including fragrant rice) during Jan. 1- Jul. 31, 2009, amounted
to 5,073,206 tons, down 26.2 percent from 6,876,115 tons in the previous year.