Farm minister Koya Nishikawa has admitted to receiving and later returning a ¥1 million donation from a company run by a sugar manufacturers' group after the body received a ¥1.3 billion subsidy from the state.
"Though it was not illegal, I returned it this morning," Nishikawa said at a news conference on Tuesday.
The donation had been made July 17, 2013, to the Liberal Democratic Party's Tochigi No. 2 constituency branch headed by Nishikawa, the minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.