Japan hopes spinach row with China won't escalate
Date: 21-Aug-02
Country: JAPAN
Author: Ritsuko Ando
Japanese officials said talks last week with Chinese authorities yielded progress but no agreement, quoting officials from Beijing as saying Tokyo's concerns over pesticides were exaggerated and lacked scientific basis.
Japanese officials said they hope to avoid a rerun of last year's testy dispute over cheap Chinese imports of mushrooms, leeks and straw used for traditional Japanese tatami mats.
"We're hoping this will be resolved quickly. It needn't turn into a trade dispute," said Hideshi Michino, an official overseeing food inspection at the health ministry.
A second round of talks is expected either late next week or early next month.
Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found 45 cases of high amounts of pesticide residue in frozen spinach imported from China between late March to early August after a private group informed them of high pesticide residues in some shipments.
Since the first discovery, imports of frozen Chinese spinach have tumbled, falling 13.8 percent in January-June to 2.3 billion yen ($19.5 million) as some importers stopped buying in fear of pesticide residues, the Japan External Trade Organisation said.
The most common violation involves the chlorpyrifos, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency describes as one of the most widely used insecticides.
The state-run China Daily newspaper has said the extra time taken to sample Chinese vegetable imports was slowing their time to market and raising inspection costs to more than $6,800 per batch from a previous $430.
But the scare over residues did not appear to be spreading to imports of other frozen Chinese vegetables, which rose 2.6 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2002, as consumers crave cheaper foods in Japan's recession-hit economy.
NOT A TRADE ISSUE: JAPAN
The health ministrys Michino said he did not want to call the pesticide issue a trade dispute.
"Right now it's a technical issue, not a trade issue. We've been explaining to our Chinese counterparts about Japanese standards, and they in turn have been telling us about the progress they've made," he said.
Michino said the next meeting would likely take place in Tokyo, where he hoped the two sides would discuss in detail what Chinese manufacturers should do and how Japan could help to lower the amount of pesticide residue.
The Japanese government is keen to avoid a repeat of tit-for-tat trade row with China last year when Tokyo imposed "safeguard" curbs on Chinese leeks, shiitake mushrooms and straw for tatami mats to protect its farmers from a surge in imports.
In retaliation, Beijing slapped 100 percent punitive tariffs on Japanese cars, mobile telephones and air conditioners. That dispute was resolved late last year after a series of heated discussions.
China has not yet made any blatant threat of a retaliatory move in reaction to Japan's stricter inspections of vegetables.
The China Daily quoted assistant foreign trade minister Guo Li as saying Japan should halt its "unfair" practices to avoid a repeat of last year's disputes.
The worries over pesticides come at a bad time as the Japanese government tries to shore up public confidence in food safety after a series of scandals and an outbreak of mad cow disease last year.
Nippon Meat Packers Inc , also known as Nippon Ham, said last week that its subsidiary Nippon Food had mixed imported beef with domestic beef and labelled it as domestic beef to apply for funds from a government compensation plan.
"Generally, people are increasingly interested in what they're eating and whether it's safe," said Masami Kushida, a Tokyo government official overseeing queries from consumers.
"There have been cases where consumers call us and ask whether the frozen spinach they bought is safe," she said. ($1=118.45 Yen).