Rice from Thailand due to the ban from other countries

KUALA LUMPUR, Mon:
The government had to buy rice from Thailand to beef up the country’s stockpile due to the difficulty in getting supply from other countries.
Secretary-General of the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Datuk Dr Zulkifli Idris said the difficulty was due to the ban on rice exports by India, Vietnam and Cambodia. However, he said, these countries had now lifted their ban and Malaysia would have more options to import rice apart from Thailand. "We bought rice from Thailand as these countries (India, Vietnam and Cambodia) stopped their exports due to production shortage but now they have lifted their ban on the export of rice,” he told reporters after opening the International Master Class in Plant Biosecurity: Isues and Responses here, today. Malaysia had requested 500,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter which sold 9.5 million tonnes overseas last year.
The order came in the wake of a record price for rice, which breached the US$1,000 per tonne (US$1=RM3.24) mark last month and Malaysia paid US$950 per tonne. The Thai Government had offered to sell 500,000 tonnes of rice to Malaysia from its existing 2.1 million-tonne stock under a government-to-government arrangement. — BERNAMA

resource: http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/NewsBreak/20080602145244/Article/index_html