Japan's Agriculture Ministry bought 10,000 tonnes of rice from Thailand at an ordinary import tender on Friday, a ministry official said. The average buying price was 37,413 yen ($339.3) per tonne. Shipment must be made from June 5 to August 4.
It was the first import tender for rice in the fiscal year to next March. In fiscal 2006/07, the ministry is obliged to buy 770,000 tonnes of foreign rice on a brown rice basis. Of that total, it plans to buy 100,000 tonnes through the simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) tenders, unchanged from the previous year, and the remaining volume via ordinary tenders.
The ministry holds two types of rice import tenders - ordinary and SBS - in line with world trade agreements. Rice imported under ordinary tenders is mainly used for processed food and alcohol, while rice imported under SBS tenders is mostly used as table rice.