SSRice Market Summary - Weekly

NEW YEAR GREETINGS FROM TEAM SSRN, as we move into what will be our first full year of market coverage

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL. What a year it has been, and in our short SS Rice News existence of exactly 6 months, we have now crossed 30 reports in 2023

As expected, the highlight this week came from Bulog’s tender which started on Monday 11 Dec 2023

We heard last week of Bulog’s troubled delivery of contracted purchases and this week

Markets this week saw highlights come from a deep dive from the dollar, which in turn strengthened selected Asian currencies and boosted prices.

Markets are looking firm as we saw the dollar weaken this week to lend to a strong Asian currency, while we also saw more of the main crop harvests enter the commercial stream, and this combined with sales

Markets were looking calm for another week, at least in terms of big news items, there were few and none more significant than Pakistan’s recently revealed adjustments on the Minimum Export Price (MEP – details are enclosed), as we see the main adjustment in basmati rice MEP

There was no Bulog demand to speak of this week, so we take a closer look at origins, how the interaction shows, and what we see is a market showing a relatively strong arrivals, in Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar

It has been an interesting few weeks where we have seen Indonesia’s Bulog reveal a second tender in two weeks, this follows news of Kenya’s duty free 500 TMT imports demand, and as we have seen arrivals in Pakistan, Thailand and Myanmar provide the best supply sources, and this week we can also add India, as a market showing arrivals in progress and as the pressure from some strong supplies over a relatively short period show.