JAPAN’S government plans to have prison inmates process scallops for export to overcome a bottleneck arising from China’s ban on imported seafood from its neighbour, according to a Mainichi newspaper report.
To meet hygiene standards required for export to Europe and North America, the scheme will allow qualified inmates to commute to private-sector processing plants without the supervision of prison officers, the report said.
Since Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean in August, China has banned imports of Japanese seafood both for domestic consumption and processing for re-export.
The agriculture ministry and justice ministry are still studying the idea of using prisoners for this work, a spokesperson for the agriculture ministry said. The ministry has communicated with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party about the proposal, though nothing has been formalised, the spokesperson said.
Businesses involved in the workaround would make payments directly to the government for the labour and would be exempt from paying welfare costs including insurance, according to the justice ministry’s guidelines for prison labour.
“China was the hub for processing scallops for exports to the US,” said Kouzou Takiguchi, spokesperson at the Japan Aquatic Products Export Council. “We’re looking for a third country for new processing hub like in Vietnam or Thailand, as well as pushing consumption and processing capacity domestically.”
Japan exported US$721mil (RM3.4bil) fresh, frozen and processed scallops last year. China was the biggest market for its agriculture, forestry and fishery goods in 2022, with seafood accounting for roughly a third of the export amount. — Bloomberg
