Tariffs & quotas

Committee:
Food & Agriculture
status:
Good progress
Published:
With the implementation of the EU-Japan EPA, and the removal or reduction of tariffs, EU products now have an improved market access. The EBC has big hopes that this will also translate to more European food products in the shopping bags of Japanese consumers. It is however important that these liberalisations are implemented without the use of stringent safeguard measures and that also TRQ administration is improved.

Recommendations

  • It is of utmost importance that the quota management system is transparent and easy to use.
  • There should be no requirements that TRQ volumes applied for should already be covered by sales contracts.
  • The lottery system that “covers” some of the TRQ is very difficult to use, due to low predictability. Japan should change the system for those quotas that are completely utilised to a system of allocation using historical data with a portion dedicated to newcomers.