Thai government nixes more rubber buying

qiangzi

Thursday, August 30, 2012

( ~" G4 V* M" ]8 qBangkok, Thailand - The Thailand government turned down a plan to spend another 15 billion baht ($480 million) on buying rubber to prop up prices, but will monitor the situation to see if further intervention is necessary. An intervention scheme launched in January has failed to raise unsmoked rubber sheet (USS3) to anywhere near the targeted price of 120 baht per kg and the government has bought only a fraction of the planned 200,000 metric tons. In addition to its domestic intervention scheme, Thailand agreed with Indonesia and Malaysia on August 16 to cut exports by a total 300,000 metric tons to support prices.