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.

It 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 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.

Taiwan’s decision 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.”

Agence France-Presse (AFP) could not immediately confirm the news with Taiwanese authorities.

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 UN 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.”