EC FARM LIBERALISATION SEEN HURTING THAI TAPIOCA Any European Community decision to liberalise farm trade policy would hurt Thailand's tapioca industry, said Ammar Siamwalla, an agro-economist at the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI). He told a weekend trade seminar here that any EC move to cut tariff protection for EC grains would make many crops more competitive than tapioca in the European market. The EC is the largest buyer of Thai tapioca, absorbing more than two thirds of the 5.8 mln tonnes of pellets exported by Thailand last year. Thailand has an EC quota of an average 5.25 mln tonnes a year until 1990. Ammar said Thailand had benefited from an EC tariff loophole that subjects Thai tapioca to a preferential six pct import duty. Ammar, head of the agricultural research group of the TDRI, suggested tapioca farmers diversify to other crops. He said: "If cereal prices in Europe fall so that they are close to world prices, the tapioca market there will disappear completely." He said the issue may put Thailand in a dilemma because it had recently joined other major commodity producers in calling on the EC to cut its farm product export subsidies.