Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has vowed to put together measures in order to support his country’s fishing industry which has been hit by China’s ban on its seafood.
Kishida made these remarks to reporters following a visit to Tokyo’s biggest fish market, the Toyosu fish market on Thursday, August 31, 2023, where he sampled seafood and talked to workers to assess the impact of China’s ban on Japanese seafood in reaction to the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi plant to the sea.
“We will compile support measures that stand by the fisheries operators,” Kishida said, adding that requests included support to help fishing companies develop new sales avenues and holding discussions with China.
“We will also resolutely call on China to scrap its trade restrictions that has no scientific bases,” Kishida added.
To fund the measures, the government will inject additional funds of approximately several tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars) from the government’s budget reserves for the current fiscal year, a news agency reported.
The release of the treated wastewater began last week and is expected to continue for decades. Japanese fishing groups and neighboring countries opposed it, and China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood in response.
China had stepped up testing on Japanese fisheries products, causing long delays at customs, even before the water release and its ban. Japanese Fisheries Agency officials disclosed that the measure has affected prices and sales of seafood not from Fukushima but from as far away as Hokkaido.
One of the seafood business operators told Kishida that sales of his scallops, which are largely exported to China, have dropped 90% since the treated water discharge.
Government officials have called for Japanese consumers to eat more scallops to help support hard-hit exporters, while finding new export destinations in Europe and the United States.
According to officials and the operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO) Holdings, all seawater and fish sampling data since the release have been way below the set safety limits for radioactivity.
Chief Cabinet Secretary, Hirokazu Matsuno has suggested an option of taking the case to the World Trade Organization.
He said that Japan has raised past issues concerning China’s trade restrictions without scientific basis, and that “Japan will consider various options while continuing to work within the WTO framework to decide necessary steps.”
Japanese Foreign Minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi stressed the importance of dialogue.
Meanwhile, in a move aimed at supporting the Fukushima Prefecture’s seafood industry and allaying fears that fish caught from the prefecture could be poisonous, Kishida and some of his Ministers ate lunch which comprised of fish sourced from Fukushima’s waters on Wednesday, August 30, 2023.
Kishida, along with Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura, Minister In Charge of Policies Related to Children, Masanobu Ogura, and Finance Minister, Shunichi Suzuki, enjoyed a meal that included flounder, sea bass, and octopus sashimi obtained from Fukushima’s waters, along with vegetables, fruits and a bowl of rice that were harvested in the prefecture.
The lunch showed Kishida’s “strong commitment to take the leadership in tackling reputational damage while standing by the feelings of the fisheries community in Fukushima,” Nishimura said.
“It is important to show safety based on scientific evidence and resolutely disseminate (the information) in and outside of Japan,” he added.
Nishimura made a visit to a Fukushima supermarket chain on Monday, August 28, 2023, to sample fish.
