Japan’s exports of foods and agricultural, forestry and fishery products marked a record high for the third straight year in 2015 to reach 745.2 billion yen, an increase of 21 percent from the previous year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery (MAFF) said on Feb.2. Japanese cuisine boom overseas and a comparatively weak yen are major factors favorable to the continuous increases in the exports.
Exports of agricultural products totaled 443.2 billion yen in the recording period. Above all, apple exports gained the largest percentage increase of 55 percent over the previous year to 13.4 billion yen. Beef saw exports jump 34 percent to 11 billion yen, and green tea exports increased 29 percent to 10.1 billion yen.
Meanwhile, exports of fishery and forestry products respectively stood at 275.7 and 26.3 billion yen.
The Government has set a target of boosting exports of agricultural, forestry and fishery products to one trillion yen in total by 2020. MAFF aims to accelerate the growth of exports of primary industrial products by persuading importing countries of those products not only to ease their regulations on animal and plant quarantine, but also to eliminate their import restrictions over radiation concerns.
(Feb. 3, 2016)