Japan resumes shipping seafood to China

Japan has begun exporting seafood to China, signaling the end of China’s ban on all seafood from the country in response to the release of treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

China signaled it planned to lift the total ban on all Japanese seafood products in early July, opening trade between it and certain Japanese prefectures. China implemented the total ban on all Japanese seafood in August 2023, citing Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings’ (TEPCO) decision to release wastewater after years of disputes over whether the release was safe.

Studies performed in the waters near Japan found no risk of contamination, but China went ahead with the ban, cutting off one of Japan’s largest seafood export markets.

China eventually relented and signaled it was willing to begin importing seafood from Japan again in September 2024, but gave no timeline on when it would actually change its regulations.

Now, Japan’s fisheries ministry is reporting seafood shipments from Japan to China have finally restarted, NBC news reported.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara said 6 metric tons (MT) of scallops harvested in Hokkaido were shipped to China on 5 November, the first shipment of seafood since the ban took place.

“The government takes the development as a positive move,” Kihara said.

China’s ban on Japanese seafood hit the country’s seafood industry hard, as prior to the ban China – including Hong Kong – purchased 42 percent of the country’s seafood exports. Hokkaido scallop producers were hit particularly hard, with many companies forced to find new solutions for processing and new markets for the product.

Yokorei Co. Deputy General Manager Shunsuke Otsuki told SeafoodSource in 2024 the company had been forced to find a new destination for 3,000 MT of scallops that it used to send to China for reprocessing, and that many companies were struggling to find processors in Southeast Asia.

The ban also showed in Japan’s food export totals, as while the country posted record food export values in 2024, its seafood export value dropped 7.5 percent.

Japanese seafood exporters turned to other markets, like the U.S., in order to offset the Chinese ban.