As China continues to suspend imports of Japanese fishery products, Japanese companies have visited Vietnam to see if it could serve as an alternative processing base for scallops and other products.

Officials of 12 seafood processing and trading firms from Hokkaido, Miyagi and other prefectures attended a business meeting in the capital, Hanoi, on Monday.

Participants later visited a local processing facility. The manufacturer introduced its equipment and capabilities to the Japanese delegates.

Scallops had been shucked in China before being exported to final consumer countries -- mainly the United States. With Beijing suspending Japanese seafood imports since last August, it has become an urgent task for Japanese firms to find a processing base to replace China.

One of the Japanese delegates, Hasegawa Hiroyuki, president of a seafood-processing firm in Hokkaido, said he wants to choose partners that meet various conditions, such as ones located in consuming countries or those that can properly process and export products to third countries.

The event organizer, the Japan External Trade Organization, or JETRO, said Japanese firms need to diversify their supply chains because risks are unavoidable if business partners are concentrated in one country.