Fifteen organizations, including agricultural cooperatives’ national federations, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) and the Japan Business Federation or KEIDANREN, concluded an agreement on closer cooperation in boosting exports of agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products for the first time at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo on December 20.
The whole related industries plan to strengthen the ties of cooperation so as to promote sales of Japanese farm products and foods particularly in overseas markets.
The fifteen organizations will have an inaugural meeting to launch a new institute for supporting the exports next March under MAFF’s auspices.
The Japanese government has set forth a target of increasing the value of exports of agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products to one trillion yen by 2020. The export promotion system is to be strengthened jointly by the government and the private sector to achieve the target.
The agreement on export cooperation was signed by representatives of farmers’ cooperative organizations, industrial associations of rice, vegetables and fruits, KEIDANREN, the Japan Chamber of Commerce, and the National Governors’ Conference.
The new institute to be set up by MAFF next March will carry out a function of having a grasp on overseas consumers’ requirements by posting special market researchers at some foreign countries. It is expected that the function will be useful for increasing exports of domestically produced agricultural and food commodities.
MAFF will use human resources of private companies by inviting their staff members at the institute, which is to be privatized in a near future.