Gotemba Mayor Yohei Wakabayashi said Tuesday 12 July he hopes the cooperation will eventually extend from the city to other municipalities in Shizuoka and eventually Japan as a whole.
The council estimates that Taiwan will ship 2 tons of bananas every month.
Hsiou Dong-chong, deputy director general of the council’s Department of International Affairs, said she hopes Taiwan-Japan relations will grow stronger through the new cooperation deal.
During peak periods, Taiwan exported over 400,000 tons of bananas per year, and Taiwanese bananas took up nearly 90 percent of the Japanese market.
However, deregulation of the trading market and the unwillingness of farmers and businesses to adapt to changing conditions led to a decline in the sector and eventually to the dominance of multinational giant Dole Philippines in international and domestic markets.
Last year Taiwan exported only about 3,000 tons to Japan, accounting for less than 1 percent of the Japanese market.
Hu has said four other cities in Shizuoka — Hamamatsu, Kakegawa, Fuji and the city of Shizuoka — have expressed interest in signing similar deals with Taiwan. The council is also negotiating with Ishikawa, Akita, Aomori and Kanagawa prefectures, as well as the western Tokyo city of Hachioji.
If all sign on to the deal, Hu estimated that Taiwan would ship about 10,000 tons of bananas a year.
