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Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos are thinking about creating a rice cartel:

The plan appears to be in a nascent stage. “I think it’s time to do it, probably within the term of this administration,” Noppadon Pattama, Thailand’s foreign minister, said Wednesday.

But if successful, a cartel could have far-reaching consequences on the rice market, sustaining prices at their current historic highs and worsening a food crisis that is hurting Asia’s poorest consumers. The price of Thai B-grade rice, a benchmark variety, has nearly tripled in recent months and is now hovering at about $1,000 a ton.

Maintaining rice prices would please large-scale rice farmers and traders in countries like Thailand and Vietnam, but it would anger places like the Philippines, Singapore and Hong Kong, which rely heavily on imported rice. Plans for the cartel were front-page news in the Philippines on Thursday.

Posted by edelfenbein at May 1, 2008 2:58 PM