South Korea seeks first rice exports in 60 years

SEOUL, May 11 (Reuters) South Korea, home to some of the world's most expensive rice, is considering a change to its laws to allow exports of the grain for the first time in 60 years, the Agriculture Ministry said today.

Once desperately short of the traditional staple, the country is now struggling to cope with bumper harvests from its heavily subsidised rice farmers while increasingly wealthy consumers turn to other products such as noodles and bread.

''Requests to export rice to some countries including Switzerland were being reviewed,'' the ministry said in a statement.

Now the world's 11th-largest economy, South Korea has barred rice exports since 1945 with the exception in recent years of aid shipments to North Korea.

It became self-sufficient in the grain in the mid-1980s but has continued to fiercely protect its rice farmers, though for consumers it means paying around four times the international price.

The government had in the past blocked exports, fearful it would lay it open to even more pressure from major exporters such as the United States to open its own market.

But that concern largely evaporated after Seoul managed to exclude rice from a free trade agreement last month with the United States.

REUTERS AM DS1358