French firm signs grain export deal with Japan's Marubeni

French port logistics firm Senalia has signed a deal with Japanese trading house Marubeni that could mean handling up to 600,000 tonnes of grain products in Rouen, France's largest grain port.

Senalia, which has a silo capacity of around 800,000 tonnes in Rouen, and Marubeni, one of Japan's largest trading firms, decided to create a joint venture that would store grains coming from inland and provide export logistics.

"The aim is to ease the marketing of the products," Antoine Harmel, finance and administrative director at Senalia said.

After limiting its suppliers to the US, Canada and Australia, notably due to post-World War II agreements, Japan is now turning to other major grain producing countries for its supplies.

Late April it sealed a similar deal with Russian grains consolidator Amurzerno and logistics firm Fetexim for the import of 400,000 tonnes of feed wheat in the next three to five years into Japan.