Japan eyeing 320b yen to help farmers cope with trade pacts

December 13, 2017

Tokyo- The Japanese government will earmark some 320 billion yen under its planned fiscal 2017 supplementary budget for measures to help domestic farmers cope with the impacts of major free trade pacts, informed sources said Tuesday.

Japan and 10 other countries recently reached a broad accord on the new Trans-Pacific Partnership. Last week, Japan and the European Union concluded talks on their economic partnership agreement.

Once the Japan-EU EPA comes into force, Japan's imports of European cheese products, such as Camembert and mozzarella, which are both popular with Japanese consumers, are expected to increase.

Therefore, the Japanese government plans to help bolster the competitiveness of domestic products.

Specifically, the government will take steps to reduce raw milk production costs, enhance productivity of Japanese cheese makers and support brand strategies designed to expand consumption of domestic cheese products, the sources said.

Subsidies will be provided to livestock farmers to help them introduce machines and facilities to enhance their competitiveness against beef from Australia and other nations, as Japan's beef tariffs will be reduced substantially under the TPP.

For TPP-linked measures, the government set aside 312.2 billion yen under its fiscal 2015 supplementary budget and 345.3 billion yen under the second supplementary budget for fiscal 2016.

Initially, the Finance Ministry was reluctant to allocate a huge amount of money for the third straight year for domestic measures related to trade pacts. But the ministry eventually indicated its tolerance, following the conclusion of the Japan-EU EPA negotiations.

Japan will "take thorough measures" to strengthen its agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors, agriculture minister Ken Saito told a press conference on Tuesday. Jiji Press