Japan's Ministry of Agriculture will hold an import tender for durum wheat from any origin for a maximum 30,500 tonnes on August 23, a ministry official said on Monday.
Shipments must be made between the time the contract is finalised and the end of November. It will be the first tender for bulk durum imports without pre-fixed origin or volume, and marks the ministry's introduction of a so-called "simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) scheme" on such imports, as planned.
Japan keeps a tight grip on imports of key grains, such as wheat and rice, as its food self-sufficiency rate is one of the lowest among industrialised countries.
The rate was 39 percent on a calorie basis in the fiscal year ended in March 2007. But the Japanese government started to relax a part of state-controlled imports of food wheat from fiscal 2007/08 to meet demand of millers and other users more flexibly at prices closer to market levels.
The SBS scheme allows users to negotiate directly with trading firms and decide the grain's origin, price and quantity before together placing a bid to the government.
The flexible scheme is expected to open the Japanese market to other durum wheat producers than Canada if users prefer their products. It also lets users be exposed to the ups and downs of market prices. Between April and July the farm ministry bought Canadian durum wheat via regular tenders with licensed trading firms, and sold to users at a pre-fixed price of 46,320 yen ($391.5) per tonne, including tax.
The sales price, based on the ministry's purchase price between December 2005 and November 2006, included port facility costs of 2,007 yen per tonne and the marked-up fee of 16,868 yen that the government includes to pay for storage and other costs and to subsidise local farmers. The sales price was revised down from 46,960 yen in fiscal 2006/07.
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