Thai DPM: There will be enough rice supply for domestic demand

BANGKOK, November 4 (TNA) - Thai Deputy Prime Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong affirmed on Friday that there will be sufficient rice supply to serve domestic demand despite the country's ongoing vast flooding. Kittirat, who is also Commerce Minister, said that part of rice supply from the government's mortgage scheme has already been packed in plastic bags to serve local consumers and will soon be distributed to retail stores across the country once the Marine Department gives the green light for the resumption of marine transport from a packaging centre in the country's recently-flooded central Ayutthaya Province. Kittirat acknowledged that grain packaging plants in Chaserngsao Province in the Thai East have kept providing the bagged rice supply for domestic demand, and that there are also some 30,000-ton rice stock remained at the government's warehouses which will then be packed in bags for local consumers. According to the deputy premier, the government is considering to open new logistics centres, at Thailand Tobacco Monopoly, as well as in Onnuch, Prawet and in Baang Bueng of the eastern Chonburi Province, to facilitate and ensure the distribution of products to local consumers in all parts of the country, after more 400 logistics firms on Bangkok's Borom Rajachonnanee Road have been heavily-flooded. (TNA)