The run-down neighborhood rice shop on a quiet side street in central Tokyo has seen a lot of change in 60 years: more traffic, more people, higher buildings.
One thing hasn't changed for 59-year-old Tomoyuki Takahashi, though. His customers still don't like foreign rice.
"Foreign rice is for foreigners," said the cigarette-puffing Takahashi, who has been working at the Azabu shop for 44 years. "Japanese people like only Japa-nese rice."
In a nation where rice once served as a currency, cultural and social sentiment have long been used by Japan to protect its politically connected rice farmers from foreign invaders.
Tariffs as high as 490 percent have discouraged exporters such as the US and Australia from boosting sales to the country beyond the current tariff-free 770,000 tonnes a year.
This has enabled a rice industry that foreign trade officials call inefficient and outmoded to lumber on unchecked, charging consumers six times the average world price.
It's not all about culture and tradition, however.
Domestic political considerations also loom large as Japan comes under growing pressure to lower agricultural barriers.
The issue of farm trade reform is a major sticking point in stalled global talks to free up trade between the WTO 146 members due to meet in Mexico next week.
For Japan, farm trade boils down to rice.
"Culturally speaking, agriculture is rice," said a Western diplomatic source. "Japanese rice is seen as an icon of cultural protectionism around the world."
Japan doles out seven times the cost of production in government support, with ?3 billion to ?4 billion (US$26 million US$34 million) in direct subsidies, according to the Rice Data Bank in Japan.
Japan has said repeatedly it will not accept a WTO proposal to limit tariffs on agricultural products. This could hobble a draft blueprint for trade talks even before negotiations start.
In a move to limit imports, Japan said this week it would release 190,000 tonnes of rice from stocks held by the government and private distribution channels to alleviate worries about a supply shortage and halt a sharp rise in prices.
A Sept. 20 vote in which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi bids for re-election as head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will only end up strength-ening Japan's resolve to stand firm in the face of pressure, analysts said.
The base is shrinking, however. Some 2.9 million people worked on farms in 2000, down from 3.9 million a decade earlier and 12 million in 1960.
Tradition also plays a part.
Centuries of eating Japanese rice, favored by locals for its gelatinous texture and short, round grains, still make the prospect of tucking into foreign rice a hard sell, say foreign export officials, who blame Japan's tough import restrictions.
"Education is continuing, but it's still in the development phase," said a representative of a foreign rice growers' association, who asked not to be named. "Unfortunately, it's quite limited access to the market."
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS