By JUN HASEGAWA/ Staff Writer
September 15, 2023 at 17:29 JST
Tokyo Electric Power Co. begins discharging treated radioactive water from its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on Aug. 24. (Takeshi Iwashita)
The prices for marine products from Hokkaido halved following China’s blanket ban on Japanese seafood imports, according to the region’s government.
Retail prices of premium seafood such as flatfish and sea urchins are now 40 to 50 percent lower compared to last year, Hokkaido officials said on Sept. 14.
China has also halted imports from Hokkaido of some food products that do not contain seafood.
Japan’s fisheries industry has been hit hard by Beijing’s import ban imposed immediately after Japan started discharging treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean in August.
China had long been Japan’s biggest seafood buyer.
Separately, the organizer of a Hokkaido food festival in Singapore has requested that Japanese seafood be excluded from the event.
Though Singapore hasn’t imposed an import ban on Japanese food following the water discharge, Hokkaido officials suspect the decision was made to reassure the dominant ethnic Chinese population in the city-state.
The regional government will further investigate how much impact China’s embargo has had on the local fishery sector.
The same day, Naomichi Suzuki, governor of Hokkaido, visited seafood processors in Monbetsu on the northern coast of the island to learn more about what assistance the industry needs.
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