South Korea's state-run agricultural marketer said Thursday it held an online auction to sell 2,265 tons of U.S. rice, but failed to find a single bidder.
However, 207 tons of Chinese rice, or 19.8 percent of the 1,487 tons up for auction, were sold, the Agriculture and Fisheries Marketing Corp. said.
It was the third consecutive time since last week that an auction for U.S. Calrose rice failed to draw bidders, it said. In a May 9 auction, just 32 tons of U.S. rice were sold.
"The failure in auctioning off U.S. rice is due to the negative responses from the market and consumers," a corporation official said. "Given that, U.S. rice is not likely to attract bidders for the time being."
The corporation holds auctions for imported rice on Tuesday and Thursday each week.
Under a pact signed with nine rice exporting countries in late 2004, Seoul is obliged to import a fixed amount of rice until 2014, of which 10-30 percent should be sold directly to consumers.
South Korea aims to sell 22,557 tons of rice imported from countries like the United States, China, Thailand and Australia to domestic consumers by June this year. It will decide after July when to import an additional 34,429 tons that should be brought in by the end of the year.
Seoul, May 18 (Yonhap News)
Imported U.S. rice fails again to find S. Korean buyers |
