Initially, the government planned to allocate 80 billion yen earmarked before the start of the water release. However, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida proposed additional 20 billion yen in assistance after China imposed a ban on seafood imports in late August. The assistance worth 100 billion yen was approved at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The assistance measures for fisheries adopted by the government include the ones aimed at expansion of consumption and production, prevention of reputation damage, search for new export markets and the development of fish-processing industry, among other things.
On August 24, Japan began dumping treated wastewater from the Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean after diluting it with seawater. Tokyo claimed to have cleansed the water of all radionuclides except tritium, which was still within acceptable limits.