HK not ruling out more action on Japanese seafood ban

The Environment and Ecology Bureau on Saturday said it’s not ruling out further action concerning Hong Kong’s banning of aquatic products from Japan following wastewater discharges from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.

In August last year, the SAR government gazetted a food safety order that banned aquatic products from 10 Japanese prefectures, after Japanese authorities released treated wastewater from the power plant.

Writing on its social media, the bureau said the Japanese government had claimed that the water met international standards after being diluted and filtered, and it demanded the SAR government lift the import ban.

The bureau said it had told the Japanese authorities that the release of wastewater was unprecedented, and there would be catastrophic consequences on marine ecology and food safety if there were any error.

It added that the government had to take precautionary measures, and it’s not ruling out taking further action to safeguard the SAR’s food safety.

It said the government will continue to observe the impact of the discharge, by looking at scientific data and reports by Japanese authorities and the International Atomic Energy Agency.