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."
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
STABLE DEMAND: Delta supplies US clients in the aerospace, defense and machinery segments, and expects second-half sales to be similar to the first half Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) expects its US automation business to remain steady in the second half, with no signs of weakening client demand. With demand from US clients remaining solid, its performance in the second half is expected to be similar to that of the first half, Andy Liu (劉佳容), general manager of the company’s industrial automation business group, said on the sidelines of the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei on Wednesday. The company earlier reported that revenue from its automation business grew 7 percent year-on-year to NT$27.22 billion (US$889.98 million) in the first half, accounting for 11 percent
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS