Photo/Illutration Scallop fishermen off the coast of Miyagi Prefecture fill baskets with their catch. (Jin Hirakawa)

Seafood prices in various prefectures around Japan have dropped since China’s blanket ban on imports over the discharge of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in late August.

Fisheries Agency officials have questioned fish markets around the nation about price trends, and they explained the results at a Sept. 5 meeting of lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Although there was little change in prices of major seafood items at the central wholesale fish markets in Tokyo and Osaka, prices had fallen in Hokkaido, the northern prefectures of Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures close to Tokyo, as well as the Kyushu prefectures of Nagasaki, Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

“I believe there was a major effect (on prices) from the strengthening of import restrictions by China,” Junichiro Yamaguchi, director-general of the Fisheries Policy Planning Department at the Fisheries Agency, said after the meeting.

Prices of scallops and “namako” sea cucumbers that are popular in China had dropped in various parts of Japan.

Of the 83.6 billion yen ($567 million) in seafood exports to China in 2022, scallops accounted for more than half, at 48.9 billion yen. Namako exports accounted for 9.8 billion yen.

Scallop prices fell in Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate and Miyazaki, while namako prices dropped from 4,500 yen per kilogram in August 2022 to 4,000 yen this August in Hokkaido.

The price of farmed bluefin tuna and yellowtail in Kyushu also declined, but there was no change in the price of flounder caught off the coast of Fukushima.

(This article was written by Hironori Kato and Ryo Aibara.)

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