TOKYO — Japan’s private sector is expected to import roughly 20 times more rice in fiscal 2025 than the year before, as a historic surge in the price of the staple grain leads restaurants and other businesses to turn to foreign alternatives.
Major trading houses and wholesalers alone are expected to import more than 40,000 tonnes of rice this fiscal year, the equivalent of the annual consumption for roughly 700,000 people. The majority will come from the U.S.
