[/floatr]Asahi: EU restrictions put bonsai industry in crisis
A harmful beetle and the recession in Japan have created a financial crisis for producers and exporters of miniature bonsai potted trees and garden trees. Already struggling to find buyers at home, the Japanese bonsai industry was hit hard on Oct. 15 last year, just before the peak season for shipment from November through March. That day, the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, notified the World Trade Organization that it will take emergency measures to strengthen regulations on imports of bonsai and garden trees. The move came after a type of longhorn beetle, called gomadarakamikiri in Japan, was found in imported garden trees in the Netherlands...Their larvae can kill entire trees after entering their trunks..."Bonsai cannot be sold in the domestic market because the economic situation in Japan is bad. Now, exports are difficult. We don't know what to do," said Toshifumi Obitsu... Saitama Prefecture shipped about 70,000 trees to the EU in 2007. Of them, however, about 44,000, or more than 60 percent, would have been subject to the strengthened regulations. Now, producers and exporters say they have too many trees that cannot be sold or exported. "We have more than 3,000 pots of maple trees in stock," a producer said...more...
