While India’s WTO team lodged a strong protest with its Thai counterparts, the external affairs ministry simultaneously lodged a diplomatic protest with Thailand in Delhi, said people with knowledge of the matter.
They described Pitfield’s comments at the WTO meet in Abu Dhabi last week – that India’s rice procurement programme at minimum support price for the public distribution system was not meant to benefit the local people but to capture the export market – as “loose and made without adequate understanding”.
Thailand moved swiftly to replace Pitfield, a development that came in the backdrop of an upswing in bilateral ties in recent times. A written apology had been submitted to the Indian government through Thailand’s minister of commerce, along with a statement stressing the ambassador’s remarks did not represent the Thai government’s stance.
Incidentally, Thailand’s deputy PM and foreign minister visited India coinciding with the WTO meet in Abu Dhabi. Pitfield got her facts wrong, the people said, as only about 40% of India’s paddy output is procured by the government to meet food security commitments. Only part of the remaining quantity, which is not procured by the government-owned agencies, is exported from India at market prices, they said.
Last month, India sent relics of Lord Buddha and his two disciples for public display across key cities of Thailand, underlining strong cultural bonding between the two countries, said the people cited earlier. The relics will go through a period of quarantine at the National Museum, Bangkok, after which they will be displayed at Bangkok’s Sanam Luang Pavilion for 11 days. India and Thailand are major rice exporters. India was the largest rice exporting country from 2018 to 2022, followed by Thailand and Vietnam. In 2022, India exported 22.24 million tonnes of rice in 2022, amounting to 40.63% of the global rice exports.India prohibited export of broken rice from September 2022 and of non-basmati white rice from July 2023 to check domestic prices and ensure adequate availability in the local market in view of uncertainty around rice production in the country. Export of basmati and parboiled non-basmati rice is continuing.
