Japan Agrees with China on Fishery Exports Resumption

Tokyo, May 30 (Jiji Press)--Japan has reached an agreement with China on procedures to resume Japanese exports of fishery products to the neighboring country, the government said Friday.

The exports of fishery products from 37 of Japan's 47 prefectures will be resumed once the reregistration of export-related facilities in Japan is completed.

China in August 2023 introduced a blanket import ban on Japanese fishery products in response to the release of treated radioactive water from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tokyo has since been calling for the abolition of the ban.

In addition to the reregistration process, manufacturing and processing facilities will be tested for radioactive substances strontium and tritium before the Japanese side ships off its first batch of fishery product exports.

China's import ban will still be in place for 10 prefectures--Tokyo, Fukushima, Miyagi, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Nagano and Niigata.

The bilateral agreement was disclosed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi at a ministerial meeting on measures to expand Japanese exports of agricultural, forestry and fishery products held Friday.

He also said, "We'll continue asking China to accept beef exported from Japan and lift its import restrictions on agricultural and fishery products from the 10 prefectures."

Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi told a press conference after a cabinet meeting that the agreement is "a major milestone."

He, however, refused to pinpoint when the Japanese exports will be resumed, stating that it is "difficult to say."

According to the agriculture ministry, Japan's exports of edible fishery products to China totaled 83.6 billion yen in 2022, before Japan started releasing treated water.

The import ban hit Japanese producers of scallops and sea cucumbers, which were popular items among exports to China.

"There has been big progress, but no promise has been made to resume exports (to China) immediately on a full scale, with the import ban against the 10 prefectures still in place," said Masanobu Sakamoto, head of the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, or Zengyoren.
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