Japan's government-related trade promotion organization says it will step up efforts to support exports of agricultural and fishery products. Farm exports have been hard hit by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in March.

Exports of these products between January and October of this year fell by 8 percent compared to the figure for the same period of last year, as a number of countries banned imports from Japan due to the accident.

The Japan External Trade Organization, or JETRO, has decided to step up support for the recovery of agricultural and fishery exports.

Specific measures include organizing more business meetings with distributors in China and South Korea, where imports from Japan fell significantly.

The organization hopes that these meetings will serve as an opportunity to explain the attractiveness of Japanese products and the measures taken to secure food safety.

JETRO is also planning to invite distributors from other countries to the producing regions in Japan to show the high quality of the products.

It will also provide information on quarantine procedures and customer preference in each country to Japanese exporters at its offices across Japan.

JETRO says it hopes to double the budget for the work to nearly 20 million dollars and expand exports through these measures next fiscal year.

Source: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20111218_16.html

Image credit: http://spot2day.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/vegetables-china-japan-ban.jpg