Laos Joins Rice-Growing Project

Vientiane, Sept. 3 (Prensa Latina) Laos joined the project of creating an organization of rice-producing countries in Southeast Asia, which in the opinion of its promoters will strengthen the competitiveness of the grain in the region

Thai Minister of Commerce, Boonsong Teriyaphirom, one of the most active promoters, received approval of his peer from Lao Nam Viyaketh, during the recently held 44 ministerial conference of the Association of Nations (Asean) in Phnom Penh

With this addition there are now four the members of the bloc interested in this type of cooperation although Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam have already arranged themselves with the same purpose.

Five ink deal to form rice cartel [-Will farmers benefit from rice price increase?]

Yanyong: 10% price rise acceptable

Goal is to boost price by 10% annually

23/08/2012
Bangkok Post

Five Asean rice-producing countries are joining forces to form a regional alliance with the ambitious goal to boost rice prices by 10% annually.

Trade ministers from Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos are scheduled to sign the agreement later this year to establish the Asean Rice Federation, said Yanyong Phuangrach, the commerce permanent secretary.

Mr Yanyong called the cooperation a first for a region that exports 20 million tonnes of rice a year.

The cooperation will help lift rice prices and the census is agreed among these members that rice is not only a staple but also a main source of revenue for them.

He said a 10% rise each year is acceptable and will not have significant effect on consumers.

"The cooperation can stabilise rice prices and ensure food security in the region," he told a press briefing yesterday.

Rice Cartel Plan Resurfaces

A rice mill in Battambang province owned by the Loran Rice Group. (RFA)

Cambodia and Burma look to join forces on the regional rice market.

2012-03-21

Radio Free Asia

Cambodia is eager to revive an earlier plan to establish a regional rice trade cartel to help offset fluctuating international market prices and wants another key exporter Burma to join the group.

Officials said the move was discussed during a meeting between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his visiting Burmese counterpart Thein Sein in Phnom Penh on Wednesday during which the two leaders considered ways to boost bilateral trade.

Cambodian government spokesman and Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith said Hun Sen requested that Burma join the proposed cartel in order to help stabilize the trade on the key commodity amongst members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN), of which Cambodia is the current chair.

ASEAN is comprised of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam—all net rice exporters—as well as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore—which import the majority of their rice.

Asean states eye rice cartel

25-09-2009
The Nation (Thailand)

Major Asean rice-producers Thailand, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar plan to form an association to create a sustainable system for trading and production.

The plan was unveiled in August following Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s initiative at the Asean Summit in Cha-am in late February. It focuses on price stabilisation, food security in the region and rice development. It aims for price stability next year.

It comprises the five countries of the Ayeyawady-Chao Praya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (Acmecs) and will set up an Acmecs Rice Traders Association.

Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have agreed in principle and planned talks with Cambodia and Burma in last month's Asean Economic Ministers Meeting.

For some years Thailand and Viet Nam have cooperated to curb price-cutting in the export market through data exchange.

Price cutting

A Thai source close to the negotiations said they solved Thailand’s major problem on circumvention by neighbouring countries, diluted price-cutting in the region and stabilised prices.

"It will create a supply chain in the region which will strengthen bargaining power in the world market," the source said.

Chaiya Yimvilai, adviser to the commerce minister, said Laos proposed Thailand and Viet Nam draw up the plan.

Thailand and Viet Nam are white-rice producers while Laos focuses on sticky rice. Laos has approached Thailand as a partner in a joint venture with Kuwait to grow rice in Laos. The Lao government has allocated 200,000ha.

Laos has 2 million ha set aside for rice, but only 900,000 are actually under the crop. Meanwhile, the Asean-Australia and New Zealand Free Trade Agreement comes into force on January 1.

Australia and New Zealand are important trade partners of Asean, with bilateral trade in 2008 valued at US$67.2 billion. They were the seventh largest export market of Asean.

Asean exports to Australia and New Zealand reached nearly $44 billion last year. Major goods were fuel, machinery, automobiles, gold and electrical appliances.

Chaiya said Thailand and Australia would increase trade in services under the Thailand-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Australia wants to see more business-to-business trade.

Mekong river nations consider Asian rice cartel

November 8, 2008
ABC Radio Australia

Southeast Asia's five Mekong river countries are actively studying a plan to set up an association of rice-exporting nations.

Vietnam's prime minister made the announcement after a regional summit of the Mekong River nations with Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Burma.

He says these nations are the rice bowl of the Asian region and their exports account for about 50 percent of the world market so they have an important role to play in ensuring food security.

Thailand proposed a rice exporters' cartel last April, as world grain prices reached record levels.

It backed away from the plan after the Asian Development Bank and rice importing nations criticised it, saying it would exacerbate hunger and poverty.

Vietnam Expresses Support For Rice Cartel, If Development-Based

May 7, 2008 (EIRNS)—Vietnam can join a rice cartel if the organization ensures the interests of both Vietnam and the international community, according to Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Nguyen Cam Tu. Vietnam should ensure national food security, economic development, and the interests of rice growers, while helping ensure the world's food supply and prevent food crises, he said.

Various media, including the major financial press, have charged that a rice cartel would drive up prices even futher by withholding rice from the market. The critics also charge that a cartel in rice just won't work, due to the nature of the commodity; rice planting can't be turned off like an oil spigot, the countries won't work together, rice is subject to spoilage, etc.

Instead, as Thailand's Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama explained after a meeting with ambassadors from six rice-exporting countries in Asia, "If Thailand fixes a price, that will make matters worse and worsen food security." Instead, Mr. Noppadon said Thailand proposed holding in the next month or two a meeting that would work with top Asian exporters, including India, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Pakistan, to improve productivity. He also said exporting countries would discuss sharing technology and market and price information.

Hun Sen still wants to discuss OREC after Thailand decided to abandon this plan

Cambodian PM: rice cartel will be discussed in October

PHNOM PENH, May 8 (Xinhua) -- The plan of creating an Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (OREC) will be discussed at the minister level meeting or top leader's meeting in October 2008 in Hanoi of Vietnam, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said here on Thursday.

"We still have time to make the rice cartel," he told reporters after leaving annual meeting for Ministry of Public Works and Transportation.

"The plan of creating OREC connects from one phase to one phase," he said.

The rice cartel will benefit people in the region and world, headed.

In October, Vietnam will host the meeting of the Ayeyawady-ChaoPhraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), which is a cooperation framework among Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Rice Isn't Oil, Even If Some Asians Think It Is: William Pesek

Commentary by William Pesek

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Until last week, the next oil -- the critical resource growing ever scarcer and prompting desperate behavior to ensure supplies -- was water. Turns out, it's rice.

That's at least what some Asian leaders think. Hence a plan in Southeast Asia to create an OPEC-like cartel to manage rice supplies amid record prices. Thailand and Vietnam account for almost half of global rice exports. Add in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar and Asia's cartel would wield even more power over food prices than OPEC does with oil.

It's a terrible idea. For one thing, an Organization of Rice Exporting Countries, or OREC, would presumably favor high prices. That may benefit producers, but hurt consumers everywhere. For another, the timing is awful with commodity prices reaching unprecedented levels.

Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank in Manila, says ``the agriculture market should be market-driven'' and that ``any kind of cartel isn't good for the exporters and the importers.'' Philippines Senator Edgardo Angara says it would ``create an oligopoly and it's against humanity.''

It's hard to see how a rice cartel would even work. With oil, you have reserves -- actual stockpiles of the commodity. Rice needs to be harvested. Its production is dependent on weather, the cost of fertilizer and the availability of arable land and water. And how exactly can you control farmers growing rice or not growing it?

Move Over OPEC

Asia's disparate economies also aren't renowned for cooperation. Among Mekong Delta nations you have a constitutional monarchy, an immature multiparty democracy, two communist states and a military regime -- all at very different levels of development. Seriously, folks, good luck making that work.

The real story here is this: The very idea of a rice cartel speaks to the desperation with which Asia is treating food-price trends.

Food security hijacked recent meetings of the ADB and Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. At the ADB event in Madrid, there was vague, yet worrisome talk of 1997-like crises in certain Asian nations. Not a regional meltdown that sends contagion across the globe, but scattered ones.

One sign of the anxiety coursing through Asia is talk in India of suspending trading in more food futures as political pressure grows. India has already halted trading in wheat, rice and lentils. Now there's pressure to ban dealing in cooking oil, sugar and other commodities.

Trading Ban

The idea of banning commodities trading sounds farfetched. Markets play an important role in valuing goods and redistributing them. Yet speculation in everything from oil to gold to food is causing froth in prices. There's a speculative bubble in speculation.

It says something about the crazy market environment we're living in when George Soros leaps out of retirement to get in on it. Good timing, too: Soros earned an estimated $2.9 billion last year, according to Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine.

``If rightly or wrongly people perceive that commodities- futures trading is contributing to a speculation-driven rise in prices, then in a democracy you will have to heed that voice,'' Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told Bloomberg on May 4.

It makes you wonder why exchanges don't start demanding that buyers take delivery of the commodities they trade. The bottom line is that Wall Street doesn't realize the effect that food prices are having on the developing world.

Food Crisis

Talk of trading bans is enough to send chills down the spines of disciples of Milton Friedman. Then again, one could argue that those who believe oil prices are set by the market are delusional. OPEC ultimately controls the value of oil -- not traders.

Asia is especially vulnerable to rising food costs. It's home to the bulk of the world's population and families living in poverty. Many of the most promising markets are also there.

Global food prices surged 57 percent in March from a year earlier, according to the United Nations. ADB officials estimate food expenditure accounts for 60 percent of household outlays for poor families -- 75 percent when fuel costs are added.

It isn't hard to see why Asia is considering drastic measures. To many in the region, creating a rice cartel seems no more irrational than the Federal Reserve saving Bear Stearns Cos. from collapse. Yet OPEC's influence is a cautionary tale.

Cartel Won't Help

U.S. President George W. Bush in January traveled through the Persian Gulf begging for an increase in oil production to give U.S. consumers a break. Bush's pleas fell on deaf ears.

On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has ratcheted up the rhetoric on OPEC. While the summertime gas-tax holiday proposed by U.S. presidential candidates Clinton and John McCain is just plain stupid, she's right to question the world's most-watched cartel.

``They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world and decide how much oil they're going to produce and what price they're going to put it at,'' she said in Indiana this week.

Given how global markets are held hostage by OPEC, a rice cartel hardly seems like a wise move.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Madrid at wpesek@bloomberg.net

Thailand drops plan for rice cartel, citing humanitarian concerns

The Canadian Press

BANGKOK, Thailand — Thailand is dropping plans to create a Southeast Asian rice cartel.

The idea behind the cartel was to fix the price of the skyrocketing commodity because of concerns over food security.

The plan was first floated last week by Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej in a move to give major rice producers greater control over prices, which have tripled since December.

But the idea has been heavily criticized by officials in the Philippines, a major importer, as well as some Thai rice exporters.

Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama said Monday that after meeting with ambassadors from six of Asia's rice-exporting countries that the group is no longer talking about setting up a cartel.

Instead, Thailand has proposed a meeting in the next month or two of top Asian exporters including India, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Pakistan to improve productivity.

Noppadon denied that the about face on the cartel had anything to do with concerns about the impact on the Philippines. "We are sympathetic to all human beings, not just the Filipinos," he said.

Rice prices have tripled this year, with the regional benchmark hitting $1,000 a tonne for 100 per cent Grade B white rice.

The run-up in rice prices has come amid global food inflation, poor weather in some rice-producing nations and demand that has outstripped supply. Some Asian countries, including India and Vietnam, have contributed to the problem by curbing rice exports to guarantee their own supplies.

Supporters say that a rice cartel - tentatively named Organization of Rice Exporting Countries - would ensure farmers benefit from the increasing demand for the staple.

Despite Thailand's reluctance, Cambodia's information minister, Khieu Kanharith, insisted that an association of rice exporting countries could still be useful for avoiding a "price war, which could affect livelihoods of peoples" in the region and beyond.

He said his government will pursue discussion about forming such an association at a meeting of the leaders of five Southeast Asian countries in Vietnam later this year.

The five countries - Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar - have formed a sub-regional co-operation forum known as Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Co-operation Strategy, ACMECS.

Their next meeting is planned to be held in Vietnam in October, Khieu Kanharith said.

But Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Philippine Senate's Committee on Agriculture, has expressed concerns that a small group of producers could control the staple food and price it out of reach for "millions and millions of people."

"It is a bad idea," he said Friday. "It will create an oligopoly and it's against humanity."

Meanwhile, China said it has enough grain to keep food prices steady, amid reports authorities were struggling to prevent the smuggling of rice to overseas markets.

China views basic self-sufficiency in staple grains for its 1.3 billion people as a strategic priority, and with grain prices soaring internationally it is moving to ensure domestic supplies and curb exports, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its website.

The comments, published in the form of a question-and-answer session with an unnamed official, emphasized Beijing's ability to keep grain prices stable after four straight years of bumper harvests.

"Our grain supply and demand is basically steady, our reserves are full and we can guarantee the supply and stability of grain prices," the statement said.

It said reserves alone could meet demand for six months. The government is shifting grain from the north to heavily populated southern areas where consumption outstrips production.

Asia rice exporters to discuss cartel

A Cambodian woman cleans rice for her daily meal at Tram Knar village in Kampong Speu province about 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Saturday March 29, 2008. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday May 5, 2008 that a proposed OPEC-style rice cartel in Southeast Asia would ensure global food security, rejecting concerns that it would increase hunger and poverty. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- Rice-exporting nations planned to discuss a proposed cartel to control the price of the staple food Tuesday, a day after a regional development bank called for sharper fiscal policies to help a billion poor people in Asia cope with skyrocketing food prices.

Underscoring the fallout from price rises that have sparked food riots in Haiti, Egypt and Somalia, the Asian Development Bank said its growth estimate for Asia this year would be cut if prices continued to rise, and that next year would be even worse, erasing the gains made in recent decades across the region.

"Their purchasing power has been eroded, placing them at greater risk of hunger and malnutrition," ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said of Asia's poor, as the bank opened its annual two-day meeting in Madrid.

The rice market plunged into uncertainty Monday when the Philippines, the world's biggest importer, failed in an attempt to boost its stocks of the Asian staple.

The tender to increase its buffer stock attracted only one bidder, indicating a tightness in global exports, which could push prices even higher, traders said.

On the other hand, the Philippines' decision to delay another tender until prices dip could temper prices because of a lower immediate demand for the grain.

Rice exporters Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar planned to meet Tuesday to discuss a proposal by Thailand, the world's largest rice exporter, that they form a cartel.

Ahead of the meeting, whose venue was not immediately announced, the countries sought to assuage concerns that they might force up prices by limiting supplies.

Unlike the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the purpose of the rice cartel would be "to contribute to ensuring food stability, not just in an individual country but also to address food shortages in the region and the world," Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday.

"We shall not hoard (rice) and raise prices when there are shortages," Hun Sen said.

The Philippines wasn't convinced.

"It is a bad idea. ... It will create an oligopoly and it's against humanity," Edgardo Angara, chairman of the Philippine Senate's Committee on Agriculture, said Friday, adding that the cartel could price the grain out of reach for "millions and millions of people."

Malaysia was considering banning locally grown rice from being taken out of the country to prevent shortages, a Cabinet minister said Monday.

The move was aimed at cracking down on shoppers from Singapore and Thailand who have been taking advantage of cheaper rice and other food items in neighboring Malaysia. Malaysia is not a rice exporter and imports about 30 percent of its needs, but local rice is cheaper than in neighboring countries.

On Saturday, the Asian Development Bank announced emergency funding to help poor countries struggling with rice prices. But it warned that the price of rice and other farm products could keep rising and that would stifle economic growth in the region.

Kuroda, the bank's president, said that a continued rise in food prices would cut growth this year in Asia by just over 1 to 1.5 percentage points, with cuts of 3.4 to 4.2 percentage points next year, depending on whether the increases also triggered inflation and further fuel price rises.

Cartels and neighbors [-Manila's opposition to OREC]

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Lowdown
By Jojo Robles
Manila Standard Today (The Philippines)

It’s bad enough that five rice-growing countries on the Indochinese Peninsula are planning to form an Opec-style rice cartel. The plan becomes really scary and sinister when its de facto spokesman is a prime minister who has been accused of ordering his notorious Khmeng Wat bodyguards to throw hand grenades at protesters denouncing his government.

Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia, has an interesting explanation of the proposal to put up a cartel of rice-producing nations similar to the one that fixes the worldwide prices of petroleum products that we have come to know—and hate—as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. According to the Cambodian leader, the Mekong Delta countries that will band together to form the Organization of Rice Exporting Countries or Orec “will not only ensure food security in each of our own countries, but will help solve the entire problem of [food] shortages across the region and the world.”

Cambodia’s premier said the proposed (and self-proclaimed) rice cartel “would not try to manipulate markets.” “We will not stockpile the rice or increase prices,” he promised. “The organization is not intended to strangle the throats of countries that do not have rice.”

Right. And Opec, the inspiration for the banding together of Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into Orec, exists to make sure that there is security in the fuel supply and that the rest of the world is protected from price shocks caused by the unilateral manipulation of prices.

Why is it so hard to believe Hun Sen? Well, only last week, the Cambodian leader was urging his countrymen to start growing rice and other crops because the entire population can benefit from (or cash in on) the global food crisis—never mind if Hun Sen’s own country had been one of the worst-hit by the shortage of rice, which has ordinary Cambodians reeling from a 100 percent price increase in a year.

The resolve of the countries whose high-yield rice paddies are being irrigated by the Mekong River is also frightening. The Thai prime minister—a less scary leader who perhaps should speak for the group henceforth—said formal discussions to put up Orec will start in October.

The Asian Development Bank was quick to oppose any plans to put up an Opec-style cartel that will virtually dictate the supply and price of the cereal. According to ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda, agricultural producers should be market-oriented and countries should focus on increasing productivity in the medium and long term instead of trying to form cartels that will corner the world supply and fix prices.

Officials in the Philippines have also accused their Indochinese neighbors and co-members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations of being “anti-poor” for even thinking about putting up a rice cartel. But you have to wonder if these same officials would not appreciate being invited to become members of a cartel, had we been self-sufficient in grain and not been importing rice for at least four decades.

* * *

The proposed creation of a rice cartel (and the birth of a class of super-wealthy would-be “rice sheiks,” we can imagine) should provide us in the Philippines with all the incentive we need to become self-sufficient in the cereal at the soonest possible time. And everyone knows it can be done, if the government deploys enough resources in the effort.

At the end of the day, the main reason why a rice cartel cannot ever hold a country like the Philippines that has the capability to grow its own grain hostage is because self-sufficiency is really possible. In fact, given the right support for local farmers such as more and cheaper farm inputs and credit, better varieties and more extensive irrigation and land planted to grain, there is no reason why we cannot stop importing rice altogether in just a couple of years.

Of course, not all countries have the capability to grow their own rice on their own. But even these countries will ultimately be freed from the constant threat of “strangling,” to use Hun Sen’s quaint term, by the cartel. This is because if enough countries that do not belong to Orec start having surpluses and start exporting, prices will drop all over due to the operation of market forces.

Unlike oil, of which there is a finite supply in just a handful of countries, almost any nation in the Asean region can grow more rice and eventually ignore the cartel altogether. And then where will Orec be?

Because rice can be in large amounts using the appropriate inputs and technology, there is no reason for anyone to fear Orec even in the medium term. In the meantime, by proposing their cartel, the five Mekong Delta countries have virtually exposed themselves as opportunistic, rice-based Opec wannabes.

Perhaps the five countries (comprising half of Asean, by the way) signing up for the cartel should try to save face and rethink their plan. They should realize that they are endangering too much goodwill and friendly relations for short-term profit by putting up a cartel that just cannot be sustained for a long period of time—unless they suddenly find a way to ensure that they are the only ones able to grow rice.

As for us, perhaps the government should now throw even more money and other resources at the perfectly attainable goal of self-sufficiency in rice. And when we have made the rice cartel irrelevant, perhaps we should thank our neighbors for forcing our hand on the matter and making us grow enough rice for our own use.

That’s the good part: we can always grow our own rice. Let’s just hope the Delta countries discover in time that cartels don’t make good neighbors.

Hun Sen Defends Rice Cartel

By Win Thida, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
05 May 2008

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday defended the proposed creation of a Southeast Asian rice cartel that he said could help ensure supplies and stabilize prices of the staple grain.

Dwindling supplies and rising costs of rice have hit many countries across the region in recent months, but leaders in some countries do not support the idea of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam joining together to control rice supplies.

Hun Sen said Monday an organization of the rice exporting countries should not cause alarm.

Such a grouping could “ensure rice security,” he said.

Cambodian leader tries to allay fears about creation of rice exporting cartel

Monday, May 5, 2008
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's prime minister sought Monday to allay fears that the planned creation of a cartel of rice-exporting countries in Asia could hurt countries who must buy the grain.

Thailand's Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej raised the possibility of such a grouping during a visit last week from his counterpart from Myanmar, another rice-exporting nation. Thailand is the world's biggest rice exporter.

Such a grouping "is not intended to put a stranglehold on countries facing rice shortages," but will help make regional and global food security more stable in the future, Prime Minister Hun Sen said.

His comment came in response to concerns that some senators in the Philippines — the world's largest rice importer — expressed last week about the possibility of Thailand forming a cartel with Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Government officials in Cambodia and Thailand have hopes that such a grouping would give the five nations more control over international rice prices. Commodities experts, however, suggest that such a goal would be difficult to reach because production cannot be so easily controlled.

The Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, which also includes Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Hun Sen said Cambodia has about 2 million tons of rice for export, compared to Thailand's 9.5 million tons and Vietnam's 6 million tons. But he added that his country still has enough arable land to increase its rice production in the future.

He said that, unlike the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the purpose of a rice cartel would be "to contribute to ensuring food stability not just in individual countries but also to address food shortages in the region and the world."

"We shall not hoard (rice) and raise prices when there are shortages," he said in a speech at a university graduation ceremony. "I think our friends in ASEAN should not be worried about creation of this association."

He also claimed for the idea of the cartel, saying he was the one who raised it in a 2005 meeting in Bangkok of the leaders of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar.

In Manila, Senate Majority Leader and Independent senator Kiko Pangilinan on Monday expressed opposition to the creation of a rice cartel and appealed to those proposing the move to "think twice for humanitarian reasons."

"The rice cartel will be anti-poor, and its global implications will be tremendous. If the Philippines doesn't assert itself now as an ASEAN member and as a rice producing economy, we will soon be at the mercy of this proposed Organization of Rice Exporting Countries (OREC)!" he said.