TOKYO — It is still too early to assess the total impact the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement has had on Japan's imports of U.S. beef and wheat.
Market watchers do see a positive impact from the trade deal, in effect since January of last year, but point out the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated matters.
Because of COVID-19, the past year would have been an especially bad time for U.S. beef to face a significant tariff disadvantage in its top export market, U.S. Meat Export Federation Japan director Takemichi Yamashoji said.
"So the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement delivered important benefits for both Japanese consumers and the U.S. beef industry," Yamashoji said.
Although the trade pact did remove the mark-up on U.S. wheat, the commodity only suffered a minimal loss of market share during the one year when wheat from Canada and Australia had an advantage through the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, U.S. Wheat Associates Japan country director Kazunori Nakano said. The U.S. pulled out of the original TPP agreement, opting instead to negotiate a separate agreement with Japan.
"Flour millers remained conservative and did not change their blending ratio of raw material despite some increased cost disadvantage of U.S. wheat during 2019," Nakano said.
Japan's Ministry of Finance year-over-year import statistics do show an advantage for U.S. beef.
Whereas overall imports of chilled beef were down 5% from over 274,893 tons in 2019 to just over 261,510 tons last year, U.S. product imports decreased only 1.4%, from almost 126,908 tons to 125,157 tons.
Conversely, while overall frozen beef imports decreased 0.5% from almost 340,516 to just under 338,898 tons, imports of U.S. meat jumped 14%, from almost 114,162 tons to almost 129,904 tons.
However, Yamashoji cautioned against making an assessment based on statistics only.
"The COVID-19 pandemic is a dramatic event and the impact is ongoing, so simply looking at year-over-year volumes is not a thorough way to evaluate the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement," he said.
U.S. beef is heavily utilized by Japan’s foodservice sector, which was hit hard by COVID-related restrictions and still is not operating under normal conditions, Yamashoji said.
The growth in imports of frozen U.S. beef was partly due to consumer demand for staples such as beef short plate, of which the U.S. is the dominant supplier in Japan, he said.
"U.S. beef short plate is heavily utilized by the gyudon beef bowl restaurants and also sold thin-sliced at retail, for convenient and affordable home cooking," Yamashoji said.
Unless the overall demand for imported beef increases, imports of U.S. beef will not increase significantly, said Shiroh Ohashi, executive director of the Japan Meat Traders Association, a grouping of 30 meat-importing and -exporting companies.
"I just hope the COVID-19 problem will be resolved soon," Ohashi said.
For their part, whereas overall wheat imports increased only 0.8% year-over-year in 2020 from over 5,331 tons to almost 5,374 tons, U.S. product rose 4.4% from over 2,521 tons to almost 2,632 tons.
Since the U.S.-Japan trade agreement went into effect, the markup on wheat from the U.S., Australia and Canada has been the same, 21-member Japan Flour Millers Association Yasuo Sasaki said.
"I don't think there will be any action to unconditionally increase or decrease the import quantity of wheat from any of those countries," Sasaki said.
April 27, 2021 at 05:30AM
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Trade agreement gives U.S. beef, wheat a boost in Japan - Capital Press
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