Thai junta snaps up local rubber supplies

Bangkok

EIGHT months after Thailand's military junta started selling rice into an oversupplied global market, the officers are taking a different tack amid a rubber glut.

But this approach by Thailand, the world's biggest exporter of both commodities, may cause as many problems in global markets as the old one, analysts have said. That's because while the rubber purchases revived domestic prices that touched a five- year low in October, they're failing to cut a global production surplus that is entering its fifth year, according to data from the International Rubber Study Group.