Japan has announced that China will lift its ban on Japanese seafood imports.
The ban was imposed in 2023 due to concerns over the discharge of wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the ocean.
Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said that the agreement was reached during a meeting between Japanese and Chinese officials in Beijing.
The resumption of imports is contingent upon the completion of required paperwork.
As of now, there has been no immediate statement from China regarding this development.
The step is based on an agreement between the two nations that Beijing was to take steps toward ending the ban by joining water sampling missions as part of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, triggering meltdowns in its three reactors and causing large amounts of radioactive water to accumulate.
The wastewater was treated and heavily diluted to reduce the radioactivity as much as possible before Japan began discharging the wastewater in August 2023.
Japan says the discharge has met international safety standards and data from the IAEA monitoring are publicly available.
China blocked imports of Japanese seafood because it said the release would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities in eastern China.
Earlier this week, Japan announced plans to use slightly radioactive soil, stored near the nuclear plant, for flower beds outside Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s office.
The move is intended to demonstrate the safety of reusing soil that was removed from Fukushima prefecture during decontamination efforts. Officials say that some of the soil has now reached levels deemed safe for reuse.
The government aims to reassure the public by using the soil at Mr Ishiba’s office in Tokyo, with plans to extend its use to flower beds and other purposes within government agency grounds.
