Phil Hogan, Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, will visit China and Japan accompanied by a business delegation of more than 60 European agri-food executives from 15 Member States representing key sectors in EU trade with the two countries. Commissioner Hogan led a similar high-level visit to Colombia and Mexico in February and a further journey to Vietnam and Indonesia is planned in the second half of the year.
In 2016, over €100 million from the EU budget is available to promote EU agri-food products in third countries and promote consumption outside and inside the EU.
"China and Japan are particularly important markets for the EU agri-food sector which have shown considerable growth in recent years. I hope that these promotion events will highlight the quality, traditions, and added value of our products, as well as our food safety and traceability guarantees, and stimulate further interest from Chinese and Japanese consumers in European food and drink", said the Commissioner ahead of his journey. "I look forward to building on our existing trade flows and showing that Europe is open to business, in particular for agri-food products. My hope is that I can also make some progress on a number of hindrances to current trade."
The Commissioner's programme foresees meetings with China's and Japan's ministers in charge of agriculture, sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, as well as trade. He will also be launching a "European restaurant week" event in Beijing and Tokyo, opening Business-to-Business meetings, and visiting a number of retailers/markets, as well as field trips to local producers.
The visit will end in Niigata, Japan for the G7 meeting of agriculture ministers. In addition to the Commissioner's programme, the representatives in the business delegation will hold several business meetings on site.
, as well as the full programme of the visit, is available online.
