News in Easy English: Government to show rice prices for different parts of Japan
TOKYO -- The Japanese government will soon tell people the prices of rice in supermarkets in different parts of Japan. Now the government shares only one rice price for the whole country every week.
Rice prices in supermarkets became high. Many people worry about this. In March, the government started selling stored rice to supermarkets. This rice was cheaper. They wanted rice prices to become lower. But after more than a month, rice prices did not become lower.
The government wants to know if some parts of Japan got enough of the stored rice. They will soon show rice prices for each area. Then they can see which area did not get enough rice. They want to fix this problem.
Now the government checks prices from around 1,000 supermarkets all over Japan. Then they show the average rice price every week.
From April 21 to April 27, the average supermarket price was 4,233 yen for 5 kilograms of rice. (That's about $29.) This price is two times higher than one year ago.
Japan has a lot of this stored rice. Most of it is kept in the eastern part of Japan. So it is hard to quickly bring it to supermarkets in western Japan or small towns.
Some supermarkets in small towns say they do not get enough of the stored rice. The government heard this, so in April, they made new rules. Now it is easier for stores to share stored rice with other stores. The government hopes this will help make rice prices lower everywhere in Japan.
(Japanese original by Hajime Nakatsugawa, Business News Department)
Vocabulary
government: the group of people who lead a country and make rules.
supermarket: a big store that sells food.
stored rice: rice that the government keeps to use at a later time.
price: how much money you must pay to buy something.
average: the middle number, after adding numbers together and dividing them by how many numbers there are.
area: a place or part of a country.
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