The agriculture ministry said on April 10 that Japan’s exports of agricultural, forestry, fishery, and food products were down 10.7% on the year to 68.3 billion yen in February. The coronavirus outbreak caused a slowdown in the nation’s exports to Asian nations.

By country and region, exports to Hong Kong, the largest buyer of Japanese agricultural products, decreased by 33.7% to 13.4 billion yen. That was followed by China, where the figure stood at 8.9 billion yen after seeing a 20.1% drop, and South Korea, which saw the figure down by 30.8% to 3.1 billion yen. By item, exports of Japanese sake decreased by 21.3%, beef by 10.9%, and scallops by 35.5%.  

Meanwhile, exports to the U.S. were up 17.3% to 12.2 billion yen thanks to the effectuation of the Japan-U.S. trade agreement.  Beef exports to the U.S., for which Japan’s export ceiling was raised based on the agreement, increased by 8.9%.