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Japanese wheat producers and flour mills have agreed on a 30% hike in the benchmark wholesale price of domestically produced wheat for the 2009 crop year, it was learned Tuesday. The price increase is designed to ease the overheating of demand for domestic wheat, which has been caused by soaring prices of imported wheat, informed sources said.
The agriculture ministry's 30% hike in April in the price of imported wheat sold to the private sector has widened the price gap with subsidized domestic wheat and created heated demand for it.
The latest price hike agreement is likely to add to the upward price pressure on flour-based foods such as bread and noodle, which has been already intensified by the price increase of imported wheat. Japan depends on imported wheat for nearly 90% of domestic demand.
Contract prices for domestic wheat are set within 7% below or above the benchmark price.
The price of Hokkaido's "hokushin" brand, a key gauge for the domestic wheat market, for the 2008 harvest stands at 43,955 yen per ton, compared with the weighted average price of 69,120 yen for five major imported wheat brands.
© JCN
8 Comments
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Raja Kumar
Another 30 percent more problems via high wheat price, for the people. The diet should subsidise wheat.
Altria
What a pain in the neck.
LFRAgain
It's going to just get worse from here on out.
Sarge
What if the price of everything rose 30%? These domestic wheat producers are just going to price themselves out of the market.
notimpressed
why dontthey just remove the stupid 30% hike they put on imported wheat which created the situation in the first place? Someone must have family and freinds or thier own stakes in wheat profits somehow, they force a hike on imports to increase demand for domestic product, then when demand is too high, they increase the price of domestic product to match, so everyone gets 30% more profit, just because teh agriculture ministry says so. Or are they trying to get people back on rice? pretty wierd series of decisions. Except that it is a common example of uncompetitive practice by japans agriculture ministry, fiddling the prices to force a closed market. yeah yeah, I know oteh rgovts do it too, still doesnt make it right. IF its cheap, let the peope buy it and eat it at its real value. Who is getting any benefit from that extra 30% anyway? Certainly not the consumers.
notimpressed
oops forgot to edit
shayouzoku
my melonpan nooooooooooooooooo
Sarge
shayouzoku - You don't really eat that, do you?