Timely reports from CGD had effect

FromKudos to Tokyo and Washington on Rice Sales -- Et Tu, Thailand and India? :
"Today in Tokyo, Japan's Vice Minister for Agriculture, Toshirou Shirasu, told reporters that Japan plans to export 200,000 tons of rice to the Philippines "as fast as possible." This confirmed sale comes on top of 50,000 tons of Japanese rice previously under discussion. Even the anticipation of these sales had done much to take the speculative steam out of over-heated global rice markets, as we reported towards the end of last week (see "Rice Prices Fall After Congressional Hearings But Crisis Not Over Yet"), so with some sales now officially confirmed we can hope to see further easing of speculative pressures.

The lightening-fast turn around in just one week since CGD released our policy note ("Unwanted Rice in Japan Can Solve the Rice Crisis--If Washington and Tokyo Act") reflects well on officials in Washington, who under WTO rules could have barred the re-export of rice previously imported from the U.S., and on officials in Japan, who faced their own internal obstacles but recognized the importance and urgency of action.

Wide attention to the issue clearly helped. Congressional testimony last Wednesday by Arvind Subramanian, a joint senior fellow at CGD and the Peterson Institute, before the House Committee on Financial Services alerted senior U.S. policymakers to the issue, as did questions from Sen. Robert Menendez about U.S. officials' response to our recommendations at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that same day. On Thursday, an AFP news report was picked up widely in Asia, and over the weekend further articles in newspapers in the U.K. and India helped keep up the pressure for prompt action. By Monday, Sebastian Mallaby's column in the Washington Post (“Rice and Baloney: Irrational Policies the World Over Are Making the Food Crisis Worse”) and an accompanying editorial cemented the case for the U.S. to acquiesce to Japanese sales."
P.S.a related articleU.S. in Difficult Position Over Japan’s Rice Plan in NY Times.