SAKUYAMA Takumi    Department   Undergraduate School  , School of Agriculture    Position   Professor
Date	2018/07/26
Presentation Theme	Japan's Rice Commitments in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: A Missed Opportunity for the U.S. Rice Industry?
Conference	International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium Annual Meeting
Promoters	International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium
Conference Type	International
Presentation Type	Speech (General)
Contribution Type	Individual
Venue	Whistler, Canada
Details	Japan made unprecedented concessions on rice market access in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement. It committed to establish the country-specific quotas (CSQs) for the US (70,000 t) and Australia (8,400 t), and to create a new category for medium-grain rice (60,000 t) in its existing WTO quota. Although this was the first-ever and only case of rice market opening in Japan's 17 FTAs to date, little attention is paid to it due to the subsequent US's withdrawal from the TPP. In light of the recent signing of the TPP-11 Agreement without the US and US's demand for a bilateral FTA with Japan however, Japan's rice concessions in the TPP is still worth to examine because these terms will serve as a starting point for the possible Japan-US negotiations over the former's rice market access. Against this background, this paper aims to assess impacts of Japan's rice commitments in the TPP on economic welfares both in Japan and the US. The paper's main findings are twofold. First, it shows, based on the thorough examination of Japan's import records and TPP's negotiation process, that an additional export potential for US rice is 130,000 tons at maximum rather than 70,000 tons with the CSQ because the newly created medium-grain rice category in the WTO quota is a de facto guarantee for the US. Second, the paper estimates the welfare impacts of Japan's rice commitments under two scenarios. If US exports are limited to 70,000 tons, they will increase US export earnings by 57 million USD, reduce Japan's domestic rice price by 3.0 percent, increase consumer surplus by 481 million USD, and reduce producer surplus by 438 million USD and markup revenue by 41 million USD, respectively. When US exports expand to 130,000 tons in contrast, they will increase US export earnings by 107 million USD, reduce Japan's domestic rice price by 5.4 percent, increase consumer surplus by 867 million USD, and reduce producer surplus by 787 billion yen and markup revenue by 73 million USD, respectively.