Japan to lift duties on all vegetables, most fishery products under TPP
The Japan Times | 16 October 2015
Japan to lift duties on all vegetables, most fishery products under TPP
The government said Friday it will lift tariffs on all vegetables and most fishery products under the recently inked Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.
Duties on some of the 100 vegetable items will be removed several years after the free trade pact takes effect, Hiroshi Moriyama, minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting.
The Fisheries Agency said separately that tariffs on 350 seafood items, apart from around 10 algae products, will be eliminated under the free trade accord.
The United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific countries reached a broad agreement earlier in the month on establishing a free trade bloc covering 40 percent of the global economy.
Tokyo had sought to keep tariffs on politically sensitive agricultural products such as rice during years of negotiations with the 11 other nations, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
Moriyama dismissed concern over the potential negative impact on farmers from the new trade deal, saying vegetables such as carrots and onions are imported mainly from China, which is not a TPP member, and potatoes cannot be imported in practice due to quarantine requirements.
“We would like to take all possible measures” to support farmers who could face competition from cheaper imports, he said.
In the wake of the new trade deal, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this month pledged to carry out steps to bolster the competitive edge of the country’s agricultural sector, which has been heavily protected until now.
The farm ministry has said Japan will eliminate tariffs on about half of the 834 agricultural products subject to duties after the TPP takes effect.
Duties on bonito and frozen sockeye salmon will be abolished immediately, while those on mackerel will be removed in 16 years’ time, according to the Fisheries Agency.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry set up a task force to promote measures to help small and midsize companies capitalize on the TPP.
At the first meeting of the team, headed by METI minister Motoo Hayashi, members agreed to have such companies well informed about the TPP deal, on which a broad accord was reached just recently, and start holding briefings for them as early as this month.
The briefings will be held in all 47 prefectures as well as in the other 11 countries participating in the TPP, including the United States. The government has started briefing local government officials in charge of agriculture and fisheries products as well.
The task force also plans to promote alliances between the farming, commerce and industrial sectors to create new businesses in cooperation with the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry.
As a measure to encourage overseas expansion by small firms that are unfamiliar with export procedures, the team will tell them how to draw up on their own nontariff or tariff-reduction certificates for their goods required under the TPP pact.
At the day’s meeting, Hayashi said pushing exports is “the biggest job” of his ministry.
