Thai PM promises rice stocks for struggling Philippines

1. Pull out of Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej walking to market 2. Cutaway of security 3. Wide of Samak inside market 4. Close up of Samak looking at stall 5. People and security 6. Mid shot of Samak buying meat 7. Pullout from hands as Samak pays 8. Wide of Samak in front of rice stall 9. Pan from Samak to rice for sale 10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Samak Sundaravej, Thai Prime Minister: "It is good to have a place like this. This is the food bowl of Southeast Asia. So we must keep this because there is no starvation in Asia." 11. Cutaway of market vendors looking on 12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Samak Sundaravej, Thai Prime Minister: "It seems that this country still have strong enough to keep the stock of the rice, don't worry." 13. Various of Samak inside market STORYLINE Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej visited a local public market in Manila on the second day of his two-day official visit to the Philippines. Samak said he bought ingredients for a Thai dish that he planned to cook for his embassy staff. "It is good to have a place like this. This is the food bowl of Southeast Asia. So we must keep this because (it shows) there is no starvation in Asia," he said as he purchased meat, shrimps and a number of vegetables from the market. He also looked at the stock and prices of rice in the market. He commented that the "country still has enough stock of rice" and people should not be worried. Samak's comments come after he assured the Philippine president, Gloria Arroyo, on Thursday that his government was willing to beef up Manila's rice inventories. Thailand is the world's largest rice exporter. Rice prices in Asia have tripled this year with the regional benchmark hitting 1,038 US dollars a ton on Wednesday for Thai 100 percent grade B white rice. Prices have been lifted by growing demand, rising fuel prices, cuts in agriculture funding and increasing use of food crops for biofuels. Thailand and the Philippines _ the world's top rice importer _ are partners in ASEAN, or Association of Southeast Asian Nations, along with Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam. The Philippines says it has contracted for 1.7 million tons of rice to fill a 10 percent domestic production gap this year, and wants to buy an additional 675,000 tons as buffer stocks for the last quarter of the year. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/de994a084c19cf89fdb9d4c4670a6461 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork