TOKYO: A large upswing in mandarin and orange arrivals helped push up Japan’s citrus imports by 6% year-on-year in the first five months of 2016. According to Japanese Ministry of Finance statistics, citrus imports reached 111,143 metric tons (MT) for the period, with oranges up 26% at 42,072MT and mandarins up 50% at 14,730MT.
Two other key citrus types, grapefruit and lemons, saw reductions of 16% (35,327MT) and 3% (18,118MT) respectively. Meanwhile, lime imports rose 3% to 852MT and the ‘other’ category skyrocketed in percentage terms, up 1672% off a low base to 45MT.
Given their large drop in volume, grapefruits were the only citrus category that saw a price rise for the period, up 3% to JPY154.3/kg. The sharpest price drop was for mandarins falling 12% to JPY175.2, but in yen terms the biggest fall was in lemons dropping 11% to JPY231.8.
