Yes it is getting to the stage where I am very tempted to run to my local supermarket and start buying cheese in bulk to get me through the rest of 2009! Why? Because if the parliament doesn’t get in order, focus its intended agenda for March, then it is highly likely that the tariffs on 415 different imported goods could go up by as much as 50%!
How could that be if there has been no debate in the cabinet about raising tariffs. That’s a pretty good point. The culprit is not in new legislation set to be passed, it is in old legislation that is about to end. Remember the fiasco surrounding petrol prices this time last year when the opposition party refused to let the LDP force through a renewal of their ‘temporary’ tax cut on oil imports? Well this is a similar situation. It seems that the Japanese government – in all their wisdom – designed their tariffs law (called kanzeiteiritsuho, 関税定率法) so that any reductions that Japan had agreed to under WTO would only have a shelf life of 12 months and that if the government didn’t approve the existing tariff cuts every 12 months then they would automatically shoot back to the higher levels that they had before Japan signed onto WTO tariff cuts. What ridiculous logic. Can anyone tell me how that came about?
Even though it doesn’t feel like it when you go shopping at your local Seijo Ishii (成城石井), right now cheese imports have no tariffs on them at all in Japan. However, if the government is too busy with Ozawa’s illegal slush funds from construction companies then from April 1 Cheese could all of a sudden be slapped with a fixed 30% tariff. That is a lot if you eat real cheese (not that torokeru (melty?) stuff they put on pizzas here).
Some other key items on the list of 415 imports include beef, malt, tobacco and alcohol. How many other vices could they be targeting? Remember, it is a recession. And where would you be in a recession without vices? So maybe it makes sense to stock up on a few steaks, fags, beer, and a lot of whiskey – not to mention the cheese!
The price of cheese has been going up steadily so my husband and I have taken to going to Costco every 4 months or so and loading up on their Kirkland cheese for the bargain price of 125 yen per 100 grams (for Colby-Jack). Last week, he picked up 12 lbs. of it so our refrigerator is stuffed to the brim.
If you’re looking to score cheap cheese, Costco is the place to go.
Thanks for the slice of advice. Think you should be warned though, the anti-spam word for this comment leaver was “cats”. Smell a rat?
so where did you go to stock up on fags?? shinjuku 2-chome?
12 lbs of cheese in your fridge? That’s damn respectable.
Thanks for the tip.
I rushed out (to the net) and bought 1 kg of parmesan. Just as well I can freeze it.
As it turns out it looks like the pollies snuck in just over the line and passed the law on Mar 31.
http://www.jiji.com/jc/zc?k=200903/2009033100064
You gotta hand it to ’em. They passed it for just one more year. Let me guess, we’ll be rushing out to buy cheese again this time next year?
My guess is that this is done on purpose. Despite all the WTO burbling about not letting the world head to protectionism and a trade war…
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