both politics and monsoons can affect the rice market. In the past few months in Asia, however, rice prices have come under pressure because of weak demand and the large stockpiles in key exporting countries. The strong harvest from the wet-season crop in Asia has helped to lower export quotation from Vietnam, Pakistan and India. But, Thai prices remain unruffled by the global situation mainly because of the mortgage scheme. This mortgage scheme has also created more uncertainty in the global market as traders do not know when mortgage rice will be released and at what price.