Overseas Thai restaurants hit

Rapidly escalating prices for rice around the world are spelling trouble for Thai restaurants overseas, and there are fears that the prices may mean the end of the government's Kitchen of the World campaign.

The campaign aims to see between 500 and 1,000 new Thai restaurants opening in foreign countries every year, but the Commerce Ministry says some of them are now being forced to close for a few days every week because of skyrocketing rice prices and supply shortages.

A senior ministry source said last week that Thai restaurant enterprises had been contacting the Public Warehouse Organisation directly and pleading for rice supplies.

"Thai restaurant operators complain that they are facing difficulties in finding rice supplies from modern trade outlets and the prices are very high. They are calling for the government's help to increase rice supplies for them because some traders are speculating on rice prices," the source said.

The ministry said Thai restaurant operators in the United States and Japan were facing big problems because costs of commodities there had surged significantly. In the US, where inflation was normally around 2 per cent, the inflation rate doubled in the first quarter of 2008.

Restaurant operators have reported that they were being forced to use white rice from Vietnam, Cambodia and India instead of Thai jasmine rice, when the latter's special characteristics mean it was particularly suited to Thai cuisine.

Currently, about 3,000 Thai restaurants are operating around the world. The ministry source said the rice shortage would affect the Kingdom's image because it is the world's major rice supplier.

Moreover, the bad reputation coming from the shortage problem will destroy the government's Kitchen of the World scheme because rice is the main staple in Thai food and the government is seeking to promote it as one of the world's most popular cuisines, the source said.

Thai Rice Exporters Association president Chookiat Ophaswongse said the association had also received complaints of rice shortages and high prices from Thai restaurants overseas.

However, Chookiat said he was optimistic that the rice situation in the global market would recover and prices would become more stable as more supplies enter the market from the latest harvest.

Rice buyers should also return to buy their rice from Thailand after temporarily suspending orders due to price panic, he said.

According to the association's figures, export prices fell slightly around the end of last month, from US$1,174 to $1,162 (Bt36,784) per tonne for jasmine rice, and from $894 to $854 per tonne for 100-per-cent white rice.