TOKYO, July 6 — Japan’s rice traders widely expect prices to keep falling over the coming months amid bloated inventories and discount sales, according to a monthly survey of industry players released Monday by the Rice Stable Supply Support Organization.
The diffusion index gauging expectations for rice prices over the next three months fell four points from May to 19 in June, marking the ninth consecutive month below the 50-point threshold.
The index was calculated based on responses from more than 100 producers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers nationwide surveyed between June 1 and 25.
A reading below 50 indicates that more respondents expect prices to fall than rise. The figure ties the record low seen in August 2014, when a bumper harvest the year before had left warehouses overflowing.
Meanwhile, the rice supply-demand index for the next three months remained almost unchanged, edging up one point from May to 20, pointing to a broad consensus among respondents that supply and demand conditions will ease.
When asked what shaped their outlook for both prices and supply-demand conditions, 58 percent of respondents cited “domestic inventory levels,” while 23 percent cited “rice procurement conditions.”
According to an earlier release by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan’s private-sector rice stocks stood at 2.23 million tonnes as of the end of May, up 51 percent year on year and roughly matching the record high set in 2014.
The current rice glut followed a sharp price run-up that started in the summer of 2024 after extreme heat reduced the previous season’s harvest.
Prices have been trending down since the government began releasing stockpiled rice last year. (Namibia Daily News/Xinhua)
