Japan’s exports of agricultural, forestry, fishery and food products increased 0.7 percent from a year earlier to 75.03 billion yen (preliminary figure) in 2016 to hit a fresh record for a fourth straight year, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) announced on February 10.
Export values of agricultural products including processed foods and candy totaled 45.95 billion yen in 2016, 4 percent up over the previous year.
Sales of Japanese rice and beef in overseas markets increased more than 20 percent from a year earlier respectively to 2.7 billion yen and 13.5 billion yen.
Exports of forestry products such as plywood were also lifted to the record high of 26.8 billion yen.
Meanwhile, exports of fishery products declined 4 percent to 26.4 billion yen because poor catches of fish and sea products such as scallops were remaining last year.
MAFF’s Minister Yuji Yamamoto appreciated the increased exports at a press conference after the Cabinet meeting, saying “Efforts made by many people through “an all-Japan system” have produced good results.”
Minister Yamamoto reiterated that MAFF will improve the export infrastructure for production and distribution so as to achieve Government’s target of boosting exports of agricultural, forestry and fishery products to 1 trillion yen by 2019.