As to why your rice is cheaper than before–global and domestic demand has dropped off (my guess–global crisis) so with less demand prices experience a corresponding decline. It is also possible that you are paying less because they think you are a handsome guy and will some day marry their daughter, in which case they recoup the money later The effect works two-ways of course, you have more baht because you spend less on rice, but the rice sellers also have less baht so their purchasing power declines.

-first a reason of “social and political” philosophy : better to have a lot of people up country harvesting rice, rather than being unemployed. An army of slaves are doing the work, and then a small army of middlemen rip the benefits from the rice trade
-then several technical reasons :the issue of land ownership, the access to financings (to buy machines etc.)

So it’s clear that Thailand has a “untapped” reserve there… But a higher productivity would come at a price….

Data I saw for the year 2000 listed Thailand at the bottom at an average of 2.7 tonnes per hectare ,nearly half of Vietnam’s productivity,which was 4.2 tonnes per hectare,if I remember.

Hmmm, not sure about this one.

I’m living in Thailand and like a thai. This means i eat “Nam Prik” and 3 times a day rice. I drink Lao Khao for Sanook and the only import is my computer (hobby) equipment.

In fact it is cheaper (you get more rice for 5 baht) now then in Juli 2008 before i left Thailand for a 10 month break to germany.

But somebody must enlighten me about what exports they are talking here. What else then Food has Thailand to offer? Yes they managed to get car manufactures to produce here (with there upto 340% import tax – illegal to WTO standards) but this is an import-assemble-export game so the exchange rate is not that important.

If they don’t want to depend on western economies where is the huge try to make competitive products designed by thai engineers (oh this word alone is a joke). It’s incompetence at all levels of industrial product generation. Thats why asia still depends on the west.

Even china isn’t there. There last try to build a computer CPU resulted in a design about 5x worse then 5 year old technologie. And they had licensed the patents for the CPU. It’s a mentality problem. China are good traders but definitely not producers and this will continue for 50-100 years (2-4 generations).

“An over dependence on western economies, too much independence for the financial market as well as Asia’s reluctance to use its huge reserves are the main cause of the prolonged economic crisis, a forum was told Friday.

The impact of the current crisis was illustrated by Dr Chieanchuang Kalayanamitr, the chairman of Maxon Systems and former economic advisor to the Thai Government, who said about 10 million poor Thais would be severely affected… “

I think you provide an invaluable service.

Here is the Thai media modus operandi:

Ignore the economy.

Focus on shady bus deals. Or focus on the drama of Thai politics like a Thai lakhon without substance.

Thaksin is evil.

Abhisit is handsome and cuddly like a new born panda bear, so he can do no wrong.

People need to wake up. This economic crisis looks even worse than the 1997 crisis.

Three things pulled Thailand out of the 1997 crisis fairly quickly:

Cheap baht
Tourists can in droves.
World-wide demand was still strong, because the civilized world at that time was in an economic boom.

This time around:

Expensive baht
No tourists
Political crisis
No world-wide demand
No domestic demand
Swine flu

Next week, Abhisit is going abroad on a George Clooney tour, trying to sell Thailand like George trying to sell a bad movie on the Tonight Show.

Abhisit isn’t selling a $120 million dollar movie; he is selling a half-arsed student film made using betamax.

Even if there was international demand for Brand Thailand(you can stop laughing now), the investment rules for the country are so idiotic, very few with any business sense would want to invest money here.

BoT to prevent the baht from being too strong
http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/economics/146540/bot-to-prevent-the-baht-from-being-too-strong

“The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has promised to prevent the Thai currency being too strong against the country’s export competitors, Santi Vilassakdanont, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI), said on Friday afternoon.”

and this Baht devaluation shows in the ever increasing prices of everything, now too fast to not notice.