Thailand: Severe drought to push agricultural product prices up
The Department of Internal Trade (DIT) under the Thai Ministry of Commerce has assessed that the drought situation in 2020 could hurt agricultural production, resulting in continued price increases.
Bangkok (VNA) – The Department of Internal Trade (DIT) under the Thai Ministryof Commerce has assessed that the drought situation in 2020 could hurtagricultural production, resulting in continued price increases.
According to the DITassessment, it was expected that the prices of many agricultural products wouldincrease, especially those of jasmine rice, sticky rice, and non-glutinousrice.
The department said that theprice of jasmine rice would be stable at a higher level of 14,000-15,000 THB pertonne.
As for glutinous rice, itwould be priced at around 14,000 THB per tonne, while the price of non-glutinousrice would be 9,000-10,000 THB per tonne from the current 8,000 THB per tonne.
In addition, fresh vegetable prices also will increase as the output ofvegetables that require a lot of water.
The price of pork is expected to rise as well because of the hot weatheraffecting the growth of pigs in addition to African swine fever outbreak amongpigs in China, Laos and some other countries.
The price of palm oil is now rising. Fresh palm fruit is priced at 6-7THB per kilogramme, rising from 2019 by 2.5 THB to 3 THB per kilogramme andcrude palm oil is priced at 35 THB per kilogramme from the previous 16 THB to 18THB per kilogramme.
The Thai Meteorological Department warned that the drought will reach critical levels this month andFebruary and that the problem will continue until May before the return of therains in June.
The areas predicted to be hardest hit will be 43 provincesin the northern, upper central and northeastern central regions./.
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Illustrative image (Source: VNA) 
