By - Mar 22, 2011
Japan Asia’s second-largest wheat importer, is set to increase milling-wheat purchases by 21 percent this fiscal year as demand wasn’t hurt by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the agriculture ministry said today.
The volume of milling-wheat purchases will increase to 5.16 million metric tons in the year ending March 31, from last year’s 4.26 million tons, said Shirara Shiokawa, grain trade director at Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
The ministry confirmed that seven ports in the nation’s eastern and northern prefectures are open to unload imported wheat from vessels to supply flour-milling facilities in the region, Shiokawa said. The death toll following the magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami was 9,199 as of 11 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the National Police Agency in Tokyo. Tokyo Electric Power Co. has been battling to prevent a meltdown at a crippled nuclear plant after losing electricity that helps circulate cooling water to the units.
“The quake has not caused major damage to wheat-importing and flour-milling operations in Japan,” Shiokawa said in a phone interview today. “We don’t see any negative impact of the disaster on demand for the grain.”
The ministry may issue its forecast for Japanese wheat demand for next fiscal year by the end of this month, Shiokawa said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Aya Takada in Tokyo at atakada2@bloomberg.net