First South Korean rice imports to Japan since 1999 amid price crisis

TOKYO, JAPAN: Japan’s surging rice prices have opened a rare window of opportunity for South Korean producers to export the staple food.

Japan imported the first rice from South Korea since 1999 as soaring prices domestic grain fuelled demand for foreign products despite heavy tariffs, a South Korean industry official said Monday.

The imports were made via the Japan office of South Korea’s National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, better known as NongHyup, which said it brought in and sold 2 tonnes of Korean rice online and at local supermarkets this month.

While the amount accounts for a silver of Japan’s consumption, it offers a bright spot for South Korea’s overall exports, which were slammed in April by Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies. It also comes at a time when Asian countries are seeking to improve trade ties with each other to overcome Trump’s efforts to upend the global trade. Last month trade chiefs of South Korea, China and Japan met in Seoul and renewed their free-trade call.

The Korean rice had not had a price advantage because of tariffs but it is competitive now, an official at NongHyup’s Tokyo office said by phone, wishing to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the situation. The person added it was the first such sale since NongHyup opened in Tokyo office, reported Bloomberg.

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Japan levies around 340 yen per kilogramme on rice imports that exceed a duty-free quota of about 770,000 metric tonnes a year, and Japanese consumers’ preferences for domestic grain and the country’s convoluted supply chain have also complicated imports. But consumer rice price jumped 92 percent last month from a year earlier, the fastest pace in data dating back to 1971 and accelerating inflation, according to data from Japan’s ministry of internal affairs.