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08 June, 2021
The Japan Agricultural Cooperatives group and wholesalers are stepping up efforts to export rice to the world's most significant rice-consuming nation China as the domestic market shrinks.
Those sellers are tying up with Chinese companies and promoting high-priced, high-top quality rice on the trunk of the Japanese food boom in China, although concerns remain above the impact of deteriorating U.S.-China relations on Japan-China ties.
Regarding to Japan's agriculture ministry, Japanese rice costs two to three times a lot more than rice grown in China or perhaps america. Export costs make Japanese rice even more expensive in overseas market segments.
Thus prices ought to be lowered for Japanese rice to be affordable for normal families and competitive on overseas markets.
China consumes about 140 million a great deal of rice annually, about 20 times more than Japan, where rice usage has fallen by around 100,000 tons every year thanks largely to a falling quantity of children and changes in people's eating habits.
In April, Zen-Noh International Corp, a Tokyo-based subsidiary of the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, said it'll supply rice grown in Niigata Prefecture for Chinese food huge COFCO to market under its innovative imported rice brand King Food.
The first batch of source is merely 48 tons. Zen-Noh, on the other hand, sees its tie-up with COFCO as a major step of progress, calling it a chance to have Chinese consumers grab Japanese rice.
Key wholesaler Kitoku Shinryo Co, also located in Tokyo, commenced to export rice to China in 2016, and has seen sales growth for products appropriate as Chinese New Year gifts.
"There is a great deal of consumption appetite found in China, so we find big room for expansion," the official of Kitoku Shinryo said.
The company is now considering offering products at Chinese e-commerce platform Tmall, run by the Alibaba group.
The Japanese government includes a goal of increasing the worthiness of rice exports to China fivefold from the 2019 level to 1 1.9 billion yen in 2025.
But this attempt is unlikely to achieve success if Japan's relations with China worsen amid continued tension between China and america, an integral ally for Japan.
"We don't expect an immediate effects," a Kitoku Shinryo official stated, referring to a feasible worsening of Japan-China ties. But he added that "the speed of rice exports may sluggish" if there is any boycott of Japanese goods by Chinese customers.
Source: japantoday.com
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