A small group of about 50 rubber farmers gathered yesterday in Thailand’s southern province of Surat Thani to demand more support from the military-led government for rubber prices, in defiance of martial law.
The law has been in place since May, the same month the military staged a coup to end months of political street protests. The law prohibits all demonstrations and political gatherings of more than five people.
The rubber farmers handed in a petition to Surat Thani Governor Chatpong Chatputi calling for government intervention, police said.
“There are still about 20 farmers gathered around city hall, but no violent incidents have been reported,” a police officer in Surat Thani who requested anonymity said.
Soontorn Rakrong, a spokesman for 14 farmers’ groups based in the south, said farmers had grown increasingly desperate because the government had failed to soften the blow from a collapse in rubber prices.
Weak demand, particularly from top importer China, amid a supply glut has pushed global rubber prices down to five-year lows.
Thailand’s benchmark unsmoked rubber sheet (USS3), which farmers sell to factories, was quoted at 43 baht (US$1.30) per kg on Monday.
Farmers are demanding that the government find ways to ensure they get 80 baht per kilogram, Soontorn told reporters at Government House in Bangkok, where he had gone to seek talks with ministers.
“We will give the government until the new year to solve plunging rubber prices. If they can’t, farmers from around the country will come to Bangkok to meet [Thai] Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha,” Soontorn said.
The government said on Monday that measures to push the price of USS3 up to 60 baht per kilogram were already in hand. It has also promised direct handouts to farmers. A state body is to buy rubber from the market under measures announced in October. To avoid building up costly stockpiles, the government has said it would only intervene in the market in that way if it had buyers for the rubber it purchased.
On Monday, Thai Deputy Agriculture Minister Amnuay Patisse said China’s Hainan Rubber Industry Group (海南橡膠集團) had bought 200,000 tonnes, after purchasing 208,000 tonnes last month, but a Chinese source with knowledge of the matter said the second deal had not yet been concluded.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
RSS