Wen says Japan import controls to be relaxed

Premier Wen Jiabao flashes a V sign to a child at a gymnasium serving as a makeshift shelter in Fukushima yesterday. Wen toured Japan's devastated northeast region during a weekend trip to show his support for earthquake and tsunami recovery efforts. Fukushima was ravaged by a powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami on March 11.

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Chinese and South Korean leaders chatted with evacuees and tasted local produce in Japan's battered northeast yesterday, in a show of support for a nation struggling with a humanitarian and nuclear crisis set off by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Premier Wen Jiabao signaled China's willingness to ease restrictions on Japanese food imports imposed by China and other nations, including South Korea, after the disaster crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant and fanned contamination fears.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who hosts an annual summit of the region's three leading economies today, has counted on the event to help ease concerns at home and abroad about the safety of Japan's nuclear facilities and farm exports.

In a symbolic gesture, Wen and South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak met Kan in Fukushima city, about 60 kilometers northwest of the stricken power plant that triggered the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

Outside a sports complex that was turned into an evacuation center after the quake, the three leaders ate local cucumbers, tomatoes and other produce to demonstrate the food was safe.

Wen and Lee were the first foreign leaders to visit Fukushima since the nuclear disaster. "China is willing to continue relaxation toward importing Japanese agricultural and other goods, with the condition that safety is assured," Wen told reporters in Natori, a northeastern town he also visited which was heavily wrecked by the tsunami.

Later, Japanese Trade Minister Banri Kaieda told reporters his Chinese counterpart has also assured him that China would be more open to food imports.

"Of course, we will have inspections based on scientific evidence but we want to increase food imports from Japan," he quoted Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming as saying in talks in Tokyo.

Even though food makes up only 1 percent of Japan's exports, Tokyo is keen to ease the restrictions fearing that radiation concerns could affect other goods just when the export-reliant economy plunged back into recession.

Wen also handed out stuffed pandas to tsunami survivors at an evacuation center. His cordial exchanges contrasted with Kan's first encounters with evacuees, who shouted at him in frustration at his handling of the disasters.

Later, Wen set aside time to meet - and invite for concerts in China - Japanese pop group SMAP in Tokyo.

The annual summit of Asia's three lead economies today is due to focus on cooperation in disaster relief and nuclear safety.

(Reuters)

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