Tokyo says Taiwan eases import restrictions on Japanese food

TOKYO: Taiwan will ease restrictions on imports of Japanese food products, including seafood from areas around the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, Tokyo's ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries said on Wednesday (Sep 25).

The move comes after Beijing announced last week it would "gradually resume" importing seafood from Japan after imposing a blanket ban last year over the release of water from the power station, which was hit by a tsunami in 2011.

"Today, the Taiwanese authorities announced the relaxation of import control measures for Japanese food products introduced following the accident at ... Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant," a ministry statement said.

That involves lifting import bans on products such as wild bird meat and mushrooms from five regions, including Fukushima, on the condition that radioactive material inspection reports and certificates of origin be submitted, it said.

Marine products from the northeastern Iwate and Miyagi prefectures near Fukushima can be exported "without a radioactive material inspection report".

Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration posted a brief notice on its website on Wednesday saying that the import rules "are revised and take effect immediately".

Imports "should be accompanied by radiation testing certificates" from Fukushima and four other prefectures, the notice said, adding that the regulations will be applied "based on the date of exports".

Japan's agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister, Tetsushi Sakamoto, said he "welcomes the move as a positive step toward promoting the recovery of disaster-hit areas".

The ministry statement said it would continue to push for all remaining restrictions to be lifted.

"The Japanese government has used multiple opportunities to assure Taiwan authorities of the safety of our products based on scientific evidence, but we will continue our persistent efforts so that import restrictions such as certificate submission be scrapped swiftly," it said.

Three reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility went into meltdown in 2011 following a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people.

Japan began discharging treated wastewater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean in August 2023 in an operation it insists is safe, a view backed by the United Nations atomic agency.

However, the release sparked a fierce backlash from China, which banned Japanese seafood imports.

Beijing and Tokyo said on Friday they had come to a consensus over the water release that would allow China to phase the imports back in.

Following China, Russia banned Japanese seafood imports in October as a "precautionary measure".

Russian news agency TASS cited a top sanitary official last week as saying Moscow would maintain the embargo.