WASHINGTON (Kyodo) The United States, in a trade report released Tuesday, urged Japan to fulfill its "minimum access" rice-import obligation set under World Trade Organization rules.
In its 2009 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Japan's regulated rice import system "limits meaningful access" by foreign rice growers to Japanese consumers.
The trade report said Japan failed to meet the WTO rice-import quota in fiscal 2007, which ended last month, due to higher-than-normal global rice prices. The USTR was referring to the fact that Japan was supposed to import 770,000 tons of unmilled rice for the year but the amount purchased was about 70,000 tons short of that level.