Corn Buyers in Japan Delay Purchase After Quake, Unipac Says

Corn buyers in Japan, the world’s largest importer, are delaying purchases of the grain after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged ports in the nation’s northeast, suspending unloading operations from vessels, said Nobuyuki Chino, president of Unipac Grain Ltd.

“Japanese companies have not made deals to buy corn since the quake hit the nation,” Chino, who has traded grains for three decades, said in a phone interview today. “They need to assess how demand for the grain may change after the incident.”