EU Wants Japan To Open Up Beer Market

European Union and Japan are likely to enter into a free trade deal next year as the EU already prepared a pre draft for the next round of talks in December.

The draft suggestions demand Japan to open up its beer market to European exports and also question Tokyo’s willingness to change often little-known rules and product specifications that Europe says serve as trade barriers.

European industry believes Japan has special regulations on everything from beer to music and imported cars.

EU wants Japan to change more rules governing the import of alcoholic beverages and will seek to change Japan’s definition of what constitutes beer.

Many of the European beers cannot be marketed as beers in Japan because of insufficient malt content or because they have some ingredients such as coriander.

Japan’s beer market is the world’s third largest in terms of profit generation but is dominated by domestic producers Kirin, Asahi, Sapporo and Suntory.

Europeans have a negligible presence, with joint ventures allowing local production of premium beers such as Heineken.

Overall, an EU-Japan trade agreement could lift the economic output of both sides by almost 1%, according to the European Commission, the EU executive. Japan is the EU’s seventh-largest export market.