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The South Korean government plans to send a team of experts to Japan this week to inspect fish markets in Fukushima and Chiba prefectures as a prelude to a possible lifting of a ban on all fishery product imports from eight Japanese prefectures.
In September 2013, South Korea announced the ban on 50 fishery products from Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, Aomori, Chiba, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures due to concerns about radiation contamination from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
After the ban, Japanese Fisheries Agency officials went to Seoul, lobbying for the ban to be lifted, arguing that it was not based on scientific grounds.
The South Korean government said the ban was implemented due to the sharply increased concern over the flow of hundreds of ton of contaminated water into the ocean at the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant.
South Korea imported 5,000 tons of fishery products from the eight affected prefectures in 2012, out of a total of 40,000 tons of imports from Japan.
The South Korean team, which will arrive in Japan on Monday, includes radiation experts. They will spend five days in Japan.
© Japan Today/Thomson Reuters
8 Comments
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ramses68
So... A South Korean team of experts not necessarily under the thumbs of Japan Inc. will be taking a look around? Be interesting to see what the results of their visit are.
smithinjapan
"After the ban, Japanese Fisheries Agency officials went to Seoul, lobbying for the ban to be lifted, arguing that it was not based on scientific grounds."
Well, it's a shame that Japanese fisheries 'science' is more fiction than fact when it comes to the waters around the nuclear plant, and even if the fisheries are trying to push for the truth you can't trust the numbers given by the government and their push for people to eat the foods from around the plant as 'proof they are safe', etc. It will indeed be interesting to see what foreign testers find, if they are allowed to do testing freely, that is. Hopefully they can test freely, find good results, and lift the ban on at least a couple of the prefectures' exports. But it's better to put safety first, and a whole lot of farmers and the local governments in the affected areas have proven that is not the priority.
kiyoshiMukai
Smithinjapan. Japan has many fishing areas. Its really easy to avoid fish from fukushima. Anyways fish from fukushima can be tested and thats what theyvwill surely do.
Hotmail
This is absolutely false. Many of the fisheries and agricultural products from that area are already mixed into the local distribution systems. There is no way to tell where those goods came from. And anyone who tells you differently are either foolish or they're parroting the Japanese government's explanations.
That Guy
I am trying to understand why a country with mostly sea borders would by seafood from a foreign country, and why a foreign country hugely dependent on food imports is exporting seafood.
What a completely screwed up world.
shonanbb
@That Guy: Excellent points actually. Perhaps the Chinese have the Koreans very boxed in for one. Second, Japan does not import that much fih if I am mistaken. It is abundant here and they export.
Sure wish they had raw little neck clams though. And Gefilte Fish.
tinawatanabe
shonanbb, you are mistaken. Japan import fish the most in the world. Only half Japanese consume is from domestic.
Komo1
I don't trust the Japanese Government! Especially about Fukushima.