TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan's farm minister said Friday the country has resumed seafood shipments to China for the first time since Beijing banned imports in 2023 over the release into the sea of treated radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima power plant.

Farm minister Norikazu Suzuki told a press conference that six tons of frozen scallops from Hokkaido were sent to China on Wednesday and sea cucumbers from Aomori Prefecture will follow on Monday.

China introduced the blanket ban in a demonstration of its strong opposition to the ocean discharge, but the two countries agreed in June that Chinese imports of Japanese seafood would gradually resume.

The ban is still in place for seafood imports from 10 of Japan's 47 prefectures, including Fukushima, neighboring Miyagi and Tokyo.