Tokyo

The Diet, Japan’s parliament, enacted legislation on Wednesday to set up a command base within the agriculture ministry to work on expanding farm exports at an interagency level.

The legislation to speed up procedures related to exporting such products, which will go into effect on April 1 next year, passed the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, with a majority vote led by the ruling camp.

The command base, to be headed by the agriculture minister, will consist of members including the health, foreign and finance ministers.

The group will create a work process chart on expanding exports and will coordinate operations among government ministries and agencies.

Operations related to exporting farm products, including certifying meat-processing facilities, negotiating with countries that have placed restrictions on Japanese food imports, and issuing export certification, are carried out by individual ministries and agencies.

The current situation has prompted criticism that exporting farm products takes too long. With the command center taking the lead, the Japanese government hopes to speed up such procedures.

Although the government aims to expand exports of agricultural, forestry and fishery products and food products to one trillion yen in 2019, the country is struggling to boost export volumes and many are questioning whether the government will be able to achieve the target.

Jiji Press