Rice slumped for a fifth day, heading for the biggest weekly decline in almost four years, as the prospect of exports from Pakistan and Japan eased concern that a global food shortage is worsening.
Pakistan, the fifth-biggest exporter, will permit shipments of 1 million metric tons as local needs have been met, Mohammad Azhar Akhtar, chairman of the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, said yesterday.
The staple for half the world reached a record last month as some exporters including Vietnam and India cut sales to guarantee local supplies, stoking concern hunger and unrest may spread. The price fell 14 percent this week, the biggest weekly drop since July 2nd, 2004, according to Bloomberg data.
Rough rice for July delivery fell as much as $1.02, or 5 per cent, to $19.32 per 100 pounds, the lowest since April 2nd, on the Chicago Board of Trade.
The surge in rice prices, coupled with record energy and wheat costs, had stoked concern about a global food crisis as basic goods cost more than the poor could afford.
The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated May 12th the global rice trade will drop 7.1 per cent this year to 28.8 million tons.
Japan is in talks with the Philippines, the world's largest importer, about shipments from Japan's stockpiles of overseas rice, according to a government official, who declined to be identified in remarks reported May 12th.