Japan has resumed rice exports to China after radioactive contamination from the Fukushima disaster resulted in bans in some eastern prefectures, the National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations said Friday.

Exports resumed after a bilateral agreement allowing Japanese rice produced outside 10 prefectures to be shipped to China as long as they are accompanied by government-issued certificates of origin.

The 10 excluded prefectures are Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Niigata, Nagano and Tokyo.

In the first shipment, 140,000 tons of rice harvested in Hokkaido last year were sold to the state-owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation.

The rice will be put on sale in department and other stores in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai from late April, the federation said.