Thailand Plans OPEC-Style 'Rice Cartel'

The prime minister of Thailand is exploring the idea of setting up a rice price-fixing cartel with four other governments in southeast Asia, including the military dictatorship of Burma. The Bangkok Post reports that Samak Sundaravej wants to establish an OPEC-style collective of producers that will influence the market for rice, whose rapidly rising price has resulted in protests and hunger riots.

Thailand is the world's leading exporter of rice and has long pondered ways to exert more control over prices. But Burma—whose military ruler, Gen. Thein Sein, was in Bangkok on an official visit—does not export rice, and the Thai government is hoping to induce the nation to produce more to ease demand. (More rice stories.)