BEIJING, Dec 22: China and Japan agreed a last ditch deal to end a damaging eight-month trade row on Friday, heading off the imminent extension of temporary restrictions, China’s foreign trade ministry said.

Agreement was reached at brief talks in Beijing Friday between China’s foreign trade minister Shi Guangsheng and Japanese counterpart Takeo Hiranuma and Japan’s agriculture minister Tsutomu Takebe.

The two sides had reached “identical views” about Japanese import quotas on three Chinese agricultural products, China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC) said in a statement.

Tokyo’s decision in April to impose the curbs, which it said were aimed at protecting Japanese farmers, prompted retaliatory tariff hikes from China on consumer products worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The temporary Japanese restrictions expired last month, but a deadline for Tokyo to decide on the measures was to end Friday, after which they were due to be reimposed for four years.

The two sides agreed the restrictions would not be reimposed and China would also end its retaliatory tariffs, a MOFTEC spokesman told AFP.

The Japanese government has decided not to apply its restrictions on the three agricultural products. In return, the Chinese government has decided to abolish its restrictions on imports of Japanese cars, air conditioners and mobile phones, he said.

An official at Japan’s embassy in Beijing said the Japanese ministers were working on their own statement, to be released later Friday before they returned to Tokyo.

Friday morning’s talks at the MOFTEC headquarters in central Beijing took less than an hour for a final agreement to be thrashed out.

The two sides reached identical views on the solution of the two countries’ trade dispute concerning three agricultural products, in the spirit of equality, mutual benefit and consultation, and in order to safeguard the overall interest of Sino-Japanese trade relations, MOFTEC said.

The row began when Japan imposed 200-day import restrictions on three farm imports — spring onions, shiitake mushrooms and rushes used to make traditional Japanese tatami mats — mostly imported from China.

Beijing retaliated in June by imposing 100 per cent punitive tariffs on imports of Japanese motor vehicles, air conditioners and mobile phones.

Japan’s temporary “safeguard” measures, permitted under World Trade Organization rules, expired on November 8.

Imports of the three farm products from China totaled $185 million in 2000, while Japan’s exports of the industrial goods came to 66.6 billion yen, according to Japanese finance ministry data.—AFP