SEOUL: South Korea said on Tuesday it will buy 299,000 tonnes of this year's rice surplus in an effort to ease oversupply and stablise the domestic rice market in a bumper year.
Asia's fourth largest economy produced nearly 4.2 million tonnes of rice this year, down 3 percent from last year's 4.33 million, but still supply outstrips demand due to low consumption, the country's agriculture ministry said in a statement citing Statistics Korea data released on Tuesday.
Korea's rice demand is expected to be around 3.9 million tonnes, the ministry statement said. The country's rice consumption was at a record low of 62.9 kg per person as of 2015.
As the rice glut weighs on prices, coupled with falling rice consumption, the agriculture ministry said in September it would carry out the rice purchase from Sept. 23 through Dec. 31.
Seoul's previous plan included purchasing 390,000 tonnes of rice for the country's rice inventories.
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