Japan's Agriculture Ministry seeks to buy 3,180 tonnes of foreign rice for use mostly as table rice at a tender on March 7 under the simultaneous buy and sell system, a ministry official said on Monday. Shipment is due by May 30 and delivery by June 30.
The SBS tender will be the fifth such tender in the year ending on March 31. Unlike ordinary tenders in which the only bidders are licensed trading firms, SBS tenders allow users to negotiate the grain's origin, price and quantity with trading houses before jointly placing bids to the government.
The March 7 tender is expected to the last one for fiscal 2007/08 to fill the country's import quota of 100,000 tonnes, on a brown rice basis, of foreign rice for table use under world trade agreements.
Through the past four SBS tenders, the ministry bought a total of 96,820 tonnes of foreign rice -- 73,456 tonnes from China, 21,704 tonnes from the United States, 1,434 tonnes from Thailand, 120 tonnes from Pakistan, 72 tonnes from India and 34 tonnes from Italy.