HANOI (Commodity Online): Natural disasters and the new government policies in Thailand may result in Thailand losing its position as the world's biggest rice exporter.
With the recent floods and new government policies like hike in Minimum Export Price (MEP) in Thailand, Thai Rice Exporters Association projects exports will drop to 6.5 million tons.
The hike in MEP of rice, made the commodity costly for the buyers as there are other huge variety rice offered at much lower prices by other countries.
Thailand accounts for 7 % of the global rice production.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is set to become world's biggest rice exporter as the nation has already announced that it would double jasmine rice exports to 800,000 tonnes this year.
Presently, India, the most active rice trader as the country is expected to produce around 103 million tons and consumption is expected to be around 92 -95 million tons for 2011-12. And the surplus rice would be exported.
