THAILAND, THE world's biggest rice exporter, pledged to maintain supplies and India vowed to crack down on hoarding as shortages drove prices to a record high and threatened to trigger protests in Asia and Africa.

"We will not act to curb rice exports," Thai commerce minister Mingkwan Sangsuwan said in an interview in Bangkok yesterday.

Southeast Asian finance ministers said every member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) had its own strategy for securing supplies of rice as prices soar.

The ministers also said in a statement that they were guarded against the risks of "a more prolonged and sharper than expected global slowdown" and were "resolved to maintain sound fiscal and monetary policies".

Thai rice prices have risen more than 40 per cent this year.

"We are assured that there will be no shortage of supply," Singapore finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said at a news conference at the end of the two-day Asean conference in Danang, Vietnam. "In term of sourcing of our food products, each of us has our own strategy. Our Thai colleagues reassured us that they have not imposed any restrictions on rice exports."

Global rice prices have been rising since October, when India banned exports of non-basmati rice and other major exporters China, Egypt and Vietnam followed.

Rice is the staple food of about three billion people, about half the world's population of 6.6 billion. The curtailed exports threaten to drive prices even higher.

Vietnamese exporters said they would seek permission to bid at the Philippines rice tender on April 17th to take advantage of rising prices, despite a government ban until June. Both countries are members of Asean and the Philippines is one of the world's largest importers of rice.

A senior World Bank official said at the conference that the economies of east Asia were sound and should be able to weather a growth slowdown and inflationary pressures from the high price of commodities.