Japan may export rice to Sri Lanka - official

TOKYO (Thomson Financial) - Japan is considering a request from Sri Lanka to export up to 200,000 tonnes of its rice supplies to help Colombo ease acute food shortages, a Japanese foreign ministry official said Monday.

'We are considering their request,' said the official, who declined to be named.

'It is still unknown in what form we can provide foreign rice, for example, as grant in aid or by selling it at reasonable prices,' the official said.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda are scheduled to visit Rome this week to attend a high-level meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

'Although no contact between the two sides is scheduled, we don't rule out the possibility,' the official said.

The World Bank said last week it was considering giving Sri Lanka a crisis loan to tackle galloping food prices as the island battles 30 percent inflation and over three decades of separatist war with Tamil Tiger rebels.

Japan is already considering using some of its stockpile of foreign rice to help countries struggling to find enough food to feed their people.

Tokyo is also mulling a request to sell 200,000 tonnes from its 1.5 million tonnes of imported rice to the Philippines.

Food shortages have sparked protests and even riots in some countries and export limits in others, hurting developing countries where food costs consume the lion's share of household income.

But Japan, Asia's biggest economy, is sitting on a rice mountain as it needs to import 770,000 tonnes every year to fulfil its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Imported rice, unpopular in Japan, often ends up in processed food or is kept until it deteriorates and then sold as livestock feed.

To sell these stocks outside its domestic market, however, Japan is required to obtain approval from the exporting countries.