TAIPEI – Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said Saturday the public should rationally discuss the issue of whether to ease restrictions on food imports from five Japanese prefectures imposed in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Speaking at a question-and-answer session at a year-end news conference at the Presidential Office, Tsai emphasized, however, that there is no set timetable nor any urgency for easing the ban.
Following the March 2011 disaster triggered by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, Taiwan banned food imports from Fukushima Prefecture and nearby Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, and Chiba prefectures, and in addition has been conducting random radiation checks on nine categories of imported foods.
The Tsai administration recently formulated a plan to relax the ban in two stages. Under the proposal, Taiwan plans to keep in place its ban on the import of all food products from Fukushima but conditionally allow imports of certain products from the four other prefectures.
The implementation of the first stage of the plan would serve as a reference for the further relaxation of the restrictions in the second stage, possibly about six months later.
