Soaring Rice Prices Driving Imports of Cheap Overseas Rice in Japan
Karoyaka, a U.S. rice variety to be sold by Aeon Co., is seen in Minato Ward, Tokyo, on May 13.
Imported rice is gaining popularity in Japan amid soaring prices of domestic rice, with the retail and restaurant industries using it more regularly.
As a staple food, consumers are generally reluctant to compromise on the taste and quality of rice and have a strong preference for domestic varieties. However, the difference in price is putting this to the test.
Aeon Co., Japan's largest supermarket operator, will begin selling pure medium-grain Calrose rice produced in California in June. While the company has to pay a tariff of ¥341 per kilogram of imported rice, it will sell a 4-kilogram package of the rice for ¥2,894 including tax, about 10% cheaper than domestic rice.
The restaurant industry is following suit, as Matsuya Foods Holdings Co., which operates the Matsuya beef bowl chain, will serve pure U.S. rice at approximately 1,100 of its restaurants, about 80% of its total.
Meanwhile, major supermarket chain Seiyu Co. began offering Taiwanese rice in November. It has been so well received by consumers that it was temporarily in short supply.
A major factor behind the increased use of foreign rice is the shift in consumer awareness. In a survey conducted in March by the Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union, which received 6,342 valid responses with multiple answers allowed, 77.8% of respondents said 'domestic rice' was the biggest deciding factor when buying rice, while 33.1% said 'low price,' up 1.8 percentage points from the previous survey conducted in October.
Wholesalers and trading companies are also increasing imports of overseas rice. Shinmei Co., a major rice wholesaler, plans to import about 20,000 tons of overseas rice by about July, but has already signed contracts for most of this amount. Kanematsu Corp., a general trading company, is considering increasing its rice imports from 10,000 tons per year to 20,000 tons and importing not only U.S. rice but also Taiwanese and Vietnamese rice.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Diplomat
a day ago
- The Diplomat
How Is Vietnam Navigating the New Trade War Era?
Can Vietnam adapt its economic model to this era of geopolitical fragmentation – or will it become collateral damage in someone else's trade war? When U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Vietnam with a 46 percent tariff on April 2 – 'Liberation Day' – he exposed a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the Southeast Asian country's economic miracle. For years, Vietnam had perfected the art of being indispensable to both the United States and China – a nimble intermediary that helped both superpowers circumvent their own destructive trade war. Since 2017, its exports to the U.S. had nearly tripled, transforming it into a manufacturing powerhouse that seemed immune to geopolitical disruption. But as a Vietnamese proverb warns: When buffalo and oxen lock horns, mosquitoes suffer. As Trump doubles down on decoupling from China, 'connector economies' like Vietnam are caught in the crossfire. With a ballooning trade surplus with the United States – third only to China and Mexico in 2024 – Vietnam has drawn accusations of acting as a transshipment hub for Chinese goods. Trump's senior counselor, Peter Navarro, went so far as to call the country 'a colony of communist China.' Although the initial tariff was eventually suspended, the threat rattled Vietnam's economy. Its Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) plunged to 45.6 in April – its sharpest contraction since the pandemic. While May and June brought marginal rebounds, the index remained below the critical 50 mark, pointing to continued weakness in export orders. True to form, Vietnam responded with its trademark agility. Within days of the 'Liberation Day' announcement, To Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the country's powerful new leader, was on the phone with Trump offering concessions. A flurry of diplomacy followed: a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, trips to Moscow and Central Asia, and trade overtures to France and Thailand. Hanoi eventually reached a deal with the U.S., yet the compromise – a dual-tariff system of 20 percent on Vietnamese-made goods and 40 percent on those deemed 'transshipped' from China – was just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Vietnam's deeper dilemma is structural. As the United States and China decouple, the room for profitable neutrality narrows. The country can no longer just plug into the highest-return circuit. Economic globalization, which has powered Vietnam's rise, is fracturing. The challenge now is existential: can Vietnam adapt its economic model to this era of geopolitical fragmentation – or will it become collateral damage in someone else's trade war?
The Diplomat
a day ago
- The Diplomat
The Evolution of ‘Made in China 2025'
The success of China's 'Made in China 2025' initiative cannot be judged simply by how effective the policy was in developing robotics, aerospace, advanced information technology, biopharma, new energy vehicles, and the five other key sectors that were meant to transform the country from a low-cost manufacturing hub into a global high-tech leader. It also needs to be evaluated in light of the priorities that fully emerged only after its launch in 2015: achieving technological self-reliance and bringing industrial supply chains within China's borders. Over the past decade, the Made in China 2025 strategy has successfully driven industrial development in many of its 10 focus sectors. But Beijing's shift toward economic security has broadened this approach, bringing a wider move toward cross-sectoral industrial dominance and more self-sufficient, high-tech supply chains. While localizing value chains inside China and self-sufficiency were part of the mix 10 years ago, the strategy was primarily designed to help China avoid the middle-income development trap, position its companies to become global leaders in their fields, and generate sustained economic growth through assertive industrial policy. China has made great strides in shifting its focus from low-cost production to tech innovation and manufacturing quality – yet supply chain dependencies persist. When Made in China 2025 was launched, it focused on 10 industries with a range of goals. The original policy and roadmap prioritized targets for market share and patent applications and the development of quality Chinese brands, while more broadly aiming to upgrade the economy to move China up global value chains. At the time, the country enjoyed access to international markets, foreign technology, and cross-border investment – and most of its policymakers, private sector, and scientific community did not support a push for more self-reliance. For instance, tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent focused their R&D efforts on the design side of the semiconductor value chain but relied on South Korean or Taiwanese technology for the actual production of chips. The onset of the China-U.S. trade war during Donald Trump's first presidency changed this equation. Washington's restrictions on Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE and the resulting broader tech war after 2018 galvanized Chinese society to embrace a whole-of-nation effort for technological advancement and self-reliance. Accordingly, the focus of Made in China 2025, as well as Beijing's metrics for assessing its results, shifted from avoiding the middle-income trap to achieving technological independence across its 10 focus sectors – with varying degrees of success.
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Rapp-Hooper: Like-Minded Countries Show Resilience Despite U.S. Unpredictability; No More Important U.S. Ally Than Japan
The tariff measures of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump have revealed that being a privileged U.S. security partner does not necessarily mean being a privileged economic partner, former Director for Indo-Pacific Strategy of the U.S. National Security Council Mira Rapp-Hooper said in a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun. The following is excerpted from the interview, which was conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent Yuko Mukai. *** I'm very relieved that the United States and Japan were able to conclude a trade negotiation after intensive engagements over the last many months. Japan is a critical ally to the United States and a critical economic partner, and having trade issues remain an irritant would have placed downward pressure on the totality of the relationship. We calculated that the LDP's setback [in the House of Councillors election on July 20] would actually make a trade deal more difficult in the coming days, but the fact that a trade deal was reached is testimony to the fact that both sides had done a good job of preparing for that moment of opportunity when it came. The critical piece, as I understand, is that the Trump administration finally demonstrated flexibility on auto tariffs, which up until that point, it had not done, and the Japanese government was then able to grant a little bit of flexibility on rice imports under the existing quota, which was something that mattered a lot to the Trump administration. I also think that elements of this trade deal recognize the critical role that Japan already plays in the U.S. economy, such as as a driver of high quality investment. I think there's no doubt that the tariff policy has impacted public opinion of the United States, in Japan and around the world, especially in allied countries. Part of what is being captured in that public opinion is, for allied countries, typically American security commitments and American economic commitments, openness to trade, have traveled together. So, part of what was demonstrated in the April 2nd tariffs was the fact that just because you are a privileged U.S. security partner did not mean you would be a privileged U.S. economic partner. The era that we knew as the post-Cold War era has come to an end, and we are at a moment of significant flux in which we don't exactly know how we will define the international order that is coming next. We are headed into a world that is much more multipolar. In that world, the United States is still extremely powerful, but it has competition when it comes to the exercise of its power on the global stage, and power is much more diffused than it has been in any time in recent memory. President Trump is playing the role of an accelerant, or an accelerator, on these trends towards multipolarity. Obviously, China is going to be extremely powerful. So too do we expect economies like India to keep growing at a significant rate. It is very hard to know after three more years of Donald Trump's presidency, where exactly this will all leave us. What is clear is that the United States is not going to be able to go back into the exact same leadership position that [it] has occupied during the post-Cold War period. It's going to need to adjust itself come 2029, once President Trump is no longer president, to a changed set of global circumstances. That certainly means finding a way to renew its relationships with key allies, because those are such an essential part of American power. And I think you even saw over the course of [former U.S.] President [Joe] Biden's four years, the challenges sort of piling up in ways that tested the United States' ability to do everything it wanted to do on the global stage. Just a year into the administration, Russia invaded Ukraine. In 2023, you saw another horrible attack on Oct. 7 that plunged the Middle East into conflict, Americans have demonstrated, in their public opinion over the course of the last couple of decades, increasing disaffection with American involvement in faraway, long-lasting wars, and have some skepticism about vast expenditure overseas, if they think those same dollars could be used at home. I think one of the really critical charges for whomever the next U.S. president will be, whether they be a Democrat or a more mainstream Republican, will be to think about how to link our foreign policy objectives on the global stage to a rhetoric and a narrative capability that actually works for the American people. Part of the beauty of what the United States built with Japan and other regional partners over recent years is that those networks of alliances and partnerships in the Indo Pacific and in Europe have actually created resilience amongst allies and partners that they can draw upon now. So whether it's Japan's leadership in the Quad [a cooperation framework among Japan, the United States, Australia and India], the U.S.-ROK-Japan trilateral, Japan's relationships with India, Australia, Vietnam individually, or the fact that Japan has forged much stronger ties with NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] allies, these are all basically like-minded countries that came together because they agreed they had a common set of strategic objectives in the world at a moment where the United States may feel more unpredictable, a little bit less reliable in its day to day interactions. It is highly likely that wherever the United States winds up three years from now, we are still living in a world where Democrats and Republicans in Congress agree that Asia is the priority theater for the future and that there is no more important ally in Rapp-Hooper Mira Rapp-Hooper served as director for Indo-Pacific strategy of the U.S. National Security Council under the administration led by former U.S. President Joe Biden. She joined the administration after working on Hillary Clinton's U.S. presidential election campaign. Rapp-Hooper holds a doctorate from Columbia University. She is a partner at The Asia Group, a consulting firm led by former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.
