A food service industry group and meat producers from the U.S. and Australia on Tuesday urged the Japanese government not to invoke emergency curbs on imported beef, saying such restrictions would hurt consumers as well as the food industry and exporters.
At a news conference in Tokyo, Japan Foodservice Association Chairman Kiwamu Yokokawa expressed his group's staunch opposition to an expected move by the government to invoke the safeguard measures.
Under World Trade Organization rules, Japan is entitled to raise its tariff on imported beef to 50 percent from the current 38.5 percent if the nation's quarterly import volume surges by 17 percent over the same period in the previous year.