Japan to Tighten Checks on Some S. Korean Fishery Products

Tokyo, May 30 (Jiji Press)--Japan's health ministry said Thursday that it will strengthen monitoring inspections on flatfish and some other fishery products from South Korea, effective Saturday. The ministry characterized the measure as an effort to safeguard the health of Japanese people ahead of summer, when food poisoning cases tend to increase. But the tighter inspections are likely to be a de facto countermeasure against South Korea, which has been banning imports of fishery products from Fukushima and seven other Japanese prefectures since the March 2011 nuclear accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.'s <9501> disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 plant, analysts say. According to the ministry, the tighter inspections will also cover refrigerated shucked arch shells, fan mussels, cockles and sea urchins. For some of them, imports from countries other than South Korea will also be subject to the stricter checks. The ministry will raise the annual number of South Korean flatfish covered by monitoring inspections for parasites that may cause diarrhea and other problems from the current 300 to 600. The number of patients who suffered food poisoning in Japan due to parasites in South Korean flatfish stood at 62 in eight cases in 2015, 113 in 10 cases in 2016, 47 in five cases in 2017 and 82 in seven cases in 2018. The ministry will also double the number of inspections on other fishery products, such as arch shells, for pathogenic microorganisms. It is considering a further increase in the number of checks depending on the results. In April, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization overturned a lower body's ruling that South Korea's import ban on Japanese fishery products from the eight prefectures amounted to unfair discrimination. END