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China's General Administration of Customs said in a statement Friday that the two sides had on Wednesday held “a new round of technical exchanges on the safety issues of Japanese

aquatic products and achieved substantial progress,” but did not mention an agreement. Disagreement over seafood imports China blocked imports of Japanese seafood because it said the release

of the treated and diluted but still slightly radioactive wastewater would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities in eastern China. Japanese officials have said the

wastewater will be safer than international standards and its environmental impact will be negligible. They say the wastewater must be released to make room for the nuclear plant's

decommissioning and to prevent accidental leaks. Tokyo and Beijing have held three rounds of talks since March on the issue before reaching the agreement this week on the “technical

requirements” necessary for Japanese seafood exports to China to restart, Japan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It did not say how long it may take before the actual resumption.

Mainland China used to be the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood, accounting for more than one-fifth of its seafood exports, followed by Hong Kong. The ban became a major blow to

the fisheries industry, though the impact on overall trade was limited because seafood exports are a fraction of Japan's total exports. Japan's government set up an emergency

relief fund for its exporters, especially scallop growers, and has sought alternative overseas markets. Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, has

said it would compensate Japanese business owners appropriately for damages from export bans. 'Mutual understanding' The nuclear plant had meltdowns in three reactors after being

heavily damaged in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan. Water used to cool the reactor cores has been accumulating ever since, and officials say the massive

stockpile is hampering the cleanup of the site. The wastewater was treated and heavily diluted with seawater to reduce the radioactivity as much as possible before Japan began releasing it

into the sea in August 2023. Last September, then-Prime Minster Fumio Kishida said the two sides reached “a certain level of mutual understanding” that China would start working toward

easing the import ban and join the International Atomic Energy Agency's expanded monitoring of wastewater discharges. People inside and outside Japan protested the initial wastewater

release. Japanese fishing groups said they feared it would further damage the reputation of their seafood. Groups in China and South Korea also raised concerns.