A shipment of Taiwanese rice bound for Tokyo departed central Taiwan yesterday, the second in a series of three deliveries of the biggest rice order received from Japan in eight years.
A ceremony was held in Changhua County’s Pitou Township (埤頭), where the rice supplier, Union Rice Co, is based, to mark the shipment and the success of Changhua rice in entering Japan’s market.
The rice is being delivered to major Japanese rice importer Kitoku Shinryo Co, which ordered 360 tonnes earlier this year, the largest purchase of rice since exports to Japan were resumed in October 2004.
The rice will be distributed directly to Japanese retailers, the first time Taiwanese rice will be sold to Japanese consumers. In the past, it was mostly sold to wholesalers supplying restaurants or food processors.
Agriculture and Food Agency Director Li Tsang-lang (李蒼郎) said rice exports have long been constrained by high costs of production, which make Taiwanese rice more expensive than that grown in the US, Thailand and Australia.
Kitoku Shinryo decided to place an order due to the high quality of Taiwan’s rice, he said.
“After the rice passed all tests, they placed an order with us. The success represents positive recognition of the quality of Taiwanese rice and the technology used to process it,” Li said.
The Council of Agriculture said rice exported to Japan must pass 591 pesticide residue tests before being given the green light.
Makoto Hirayama, president of Kitoku Shinryo Co, visited Taiwan last month to inspect paddy fields, barns and processing plants and tasted the rice himself before placing the order.
The order has been partly motivated by the food shortages faced in Japan recently. Radiation contamination of farms from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and flooding in Niigata, a famous rice production district, have combined to limit Japan’s food output, the council said.
The council was confident that Japanese importers would continue to order rice from Taiwan even after the shortages pass because of the high quality of Taiwanese rice.
Yesterday’s shipment, like the first one, weighed 108 tonnes, with the rice packed in 30kg bags. Upon arrival in Tokyo it was to be repacked before being distributed.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS