Madrid, May 5 - Rice prices have probably peaked and may fall to as low as $600 a tonne next year, the chairman of Spain's Ebro Puleva, one of the world's biggest rice sellers, said on Monday.
Rice prices have surged to around $1,000 from $383 early this year on panic buying fuelled by export curbs from India and Vietnam. That has triggered food riots from Bangladesh to Haiti.
"We believe that the prices we have seen in Bangkok are maximum prices," said Ebro Puleva Chairman Antonio Hernandez, referring to the price of Thai benchmark white rice, which touched $990 a tonne last week.
Hernandez said he expected that price to drop steadily over the next year, as long as Asia had a reasonable harvest.
"Next year it is likely we find a level of prices in Bangkok and India ... that could be in the range of $600 and $750 (a tonne)," he told analysts and journalists after publishing first quarter results.
"I don't think current prices can be maintained much longer."
Ebro, owner of U.S. brand Minute Rice, is the world's biggest rice group with a market leading position in North America and Europe, according to the firm's website.
So far Ebro has managed to avoid sky high prices on the spot market because it has contracts in place. However, Hernandez said it would start to increase prices to take into account higher prices that would kick in once those contracts had ended.
"We are making a one off rise, we are updating our prices thinking about the level of prices of this harvest," he said.