Tokyo

The Japanese government plans to earmark some 325 billion yen in a fiscal 2019 supplementary budget to chiefly help domestic farmers cope with market liberalization from the Japan-U.S. trade deal as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership multilateral pact, it was learned Thursday.

The proposed spending amount is larger than the 318.8 billion yen set aside for similar purposes in the previous fiscal year's extra budget.

According to informed sources, the government plans to finance measures designed to cultivate new markets overseas and strengthen production bases of agricultural, forestry and fisheries products.

The Japan-U.S. trade pact, signed last month and expected to enter into force early next year, calls for expanding the U.S. low-tariff quota for Japanese beef exports from 200 tons to 65,000 tons.

Aiming to substantially boost wagyu beef exports to the United States, the government will give cattle farmers financial incentives to boost production of such high-end meat.

Assistance is also eyed for Japanese food exporters eager to expand sales channels. Furthermore, funds will be allocated for implementing intellectual rights protection measures powerful enough to prevent domestically developed new varieties of high-quality Japanese farm products from being leaked to other countries.

Tariff cuts and abolishment committed by the Japanese government in the bilateral trade pact are feared to lead to surges of cheaper U.S. beef and cheese into Japan to hurt domestic producers. The government estimates that the accord will cause agricultural output in the country to drop by 60 billion to 110 billion yen a year.

The loss is expected to grow to 120 billion to 200 billion yen if effects of the TPP, joined by 10 nations including major farm products exporters Australia and New Zealand are combined.

To ease those market-opening agreements' impacts, which will be particularly big on Japanese farmers, the government plans to revise next month its policy package primarily designed to cope with the TPP, which took effect in December last year, the sources also said.

[Jiji Press]