Growers and Grocers

Philippine tuna exporters appeal to the government to help persuade Japan to lift its 9-year ban on smoked tuna products.

Japan’s Department of Health and Welfare barred shipments of filter-smoked tuna and tilapia products from the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand citing that the smoking process to preserve freshness posed a health hazard to Japanese consumers. Philippine tuna exporters use filtered and purified wood smoke (aka tasteless smoke) to inhibit browning that occurs in cut tuna meat. The said process is also administered to yellowfin and tilapia, among other fish products, to preserve freshness.

According to Jake Lu, president of the Fresh Frozen Tuna Association:

There is no valid ground for the continued ban in Japan of Philippine smoked tuna as it undergoes the same smoke-filter process as the tuna that it exports to the European Union and the United States.

Chairman of the House committee on aquaculture and fisheries Representative Luis Villafuerte of Camarines Sur alleged that the hazard claim is a sham asserting that:

The local seafood industry alliance itself bewailed Tokyo’s double-standard treatment of the Philippines. The group pointed out that while Tokyo has forbidden Philippine smoked tuna supposedly due to health risks, companies in Japan are actually exporting the same produce using the identical filter-smoking process.

The Japanese government imposed the ban on the basis that, under Japanese law, the carbon monoxide residue from the smoking process is a prohibited food additive.

However, Lu believes that:

Japan is protective of its local tuna industry, denying entry of smoked tuna from other countries but continuing to produce the products using the same smoking process and exporting them to the United States and even to the Philippines.

Local tuna exporters are petitioning the government to include recalling the ban on smoked tuna as part of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA)

The Japanese government is currently under negotiations with the Philippines and Thailand to sign a free trade agreement and is expecting to seal the deal by the end of the year. Japan currently has free trade treaties with Malaysia, Mexico and Singapore. Further plans on expanding the free trade zone to 16 nations in East Asia by 2010 are in the works.

Japan is currently the biggest buyer of fresh products and acquires up to half the 1.5 million tons of tuna produced all over the world annually.

The current ban has since directly affected the livelihood of more than 150,000 Filipinos with potential revenue losses of up to $1 billion.