Commodity Online NEW DELHI: The global rice market is hotting up with several countries fast stitching up deals to meet their food demand.
In recent development, Philippines is in talks with Japan to import around 100,000 tonnes rice from Japan.
According to media reports, the deal involves 40,000 tonnes of rice that Japan imported from the US and another 60,000 tonnes it imported from Thailand.
Japan, a country which has enough rice to feed its population and exports a huge quantity to other nations, is forced to import the grain from the US and other nations to fulfil its obligation under the World Trade Organization treaty.
This has been criticized by several experts because when the world was facing sever food crisis due to rising prices of rice, Japan was stocking huge quantity of rice in its godowns because of the WTO commitments.
Now, Japan will sell this rice to Philippines. The US rice is priced at $894/tonne while the Thai grain is priced is priced at $560/tonne, both free on board at Japanese port.
A memorandum of agreement will be signed between the two parties, after which a contract for the purchase will be finalised.
Meanwhile, in another development, Brazilian rice and wheat production is rising. This news may cool down price of the commodity in the global market.
According to reports, Brazil’s winter wheat production will rise by 38.1% to 5.3 million tonnes. Brazil plants wheat in the winter months. It is currently winter in the southern hemisphere.
Wheat planted area rose by 26.4% to 2.3 million hectares. Brazil is dependent on Argentina for its wheat supply. But Argentina has been mostly closed to Brazilian wheat buyers as the country continues restricting commodity exports to curb inflation there.
Rice, another important staple for Brazil, is expected to see production increases of 8.6% to 12.3 million tonnes. The harvest ends in early September in the northeast, and has already ended in June in the southern states, where more than 60% of Brazil’s rice is grown.
Brazil’s winter corn crop is also expected to be much larger than the year before, up 19.2% to 17.6 million tonnes.
The UN is also trying to improve the rice output across the world. As part of this, the UN’s Common Fund for Commodities and the Africa Rice Center, or Warda, will assist Cameroon, Chad and the Central African Republic in increasing rice output through a $4.5 million grant.
