Plan to end Fukushima food import rules properly assessed: Officials

Taipei, Sept. 1 (CNA) Taiwan plans to abolish special rules on food imports from Japan's five Fukushima prefectures, introduced in 2011 amid radiation concerns, with officials saying Monday that the decision was scientifically assessed before being published for a 60-day public consultation.

Among 53 countries and regions that have introduced various restrictions on food imports from Japan due to safety concerns over tsunami-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 49 have removed those restrictions, Minister of Health and Welfare Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said in Taipei.

French Polynesia ended its special measures taken to restrict imports of Japanese food last year, leaving only China, South Korea and Russia still banning certain items or requiring certification regarding radiation or place of origin, Shih said after formally taking up his new post following a handover ceremony.

Shih made the remarks on his first day in office, following the Ministry of Health and Welfare's (MOHW) announcement last Friday of a proposal to end all special rules on Japanese food imports and subject the draft to a 60-day public consultation.

Under the draft, safety checks on Japanese food imports will return to source- and border-level management, with the Japanese government controlling restricted items and Taiwanese authorities conducting risk-based sampling for radiation at the border to ensure food safety.

The MOHW emphasized that the government will continue to conduct radiation checks on food imports from Japan and other countries, citing data showing that all 263,349 batches of food imported from Japan between March 2011 and July this year, as well as 21,717 batches from the five prefectures around the Fukushima nuclear power plant between February 2022 and July 2025, met Taiwan's food safety standards.

It also said Japan's monitoring of food products for radioactive residue show very low risk of such contamination, while assuring the public that the government has annual capacity to conduct 70,000 food safety checks, which are conducted at the border as well as on products already in the local market.

Meanwhile, Chiang Chih-kang (姜至剛), director general of the Food and Drug Administration under the MOHW, told reporters that abolishing the special rules simply means Japanese food imports will face the same checks as all other countries normally face.

Taiwan has gradually relaxed the rules since 2022 and began allowing imports of food items from the five prefectures -- Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Chiba and Gunma -- by requiring certification, while imports are checked batch by batch, he explained.

Once the special rules are abolished, Taiwan will no longer require certification and will stop checking every batch of Japanese food imports from the designated areas, at the end of this year, the earliest, Chiang said.