Food exports aimed at expanding Japanese food culture and food industries overseas are one of the growth strategies identified by the second Abe cabinet. As exemplified by the designation of Washoku
(the traditional dietary cultures of the Japanese) as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage on December 4, 2013, there has been a growing interest in Japanese food culture around the world. Do food exports have an effect on Japan’s total exports? As the Linder (1961) model suggests, countries with similar demand structures engage more in trade with one another. If food exports promote the overseas expansion of a food culture and food industries, the demand structures of the countries may become more similar, and international trade may be induced. This study estimates the impact of food exports on a country’s total exports and analyzes whether a food export-driven growth strategy is possible. In this study, the effect of food exports on a country’s total exports is estimated using pair data and the gravity model for 35 countries including Japan for the period between 1996
and 2015. The main finding of the study was that the total exports increase in the range of 0.1% to almost 0.4% when the volume of food exports increase by 1%. This finding implies that FTAs and EPAs with
countries that receive a large volume of food exports from Japan will lead to an expansion in Japan’s total export.
