By Yoshifumi Takemoto and Katya Golubkova
TOKYO (Reuters) -&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;expects&nbsp;a "significant" impact&nbsp;from&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;import&nbsp;ban&nbsp;by&nbsp;Hong&nbsp;Kong&nbsp;and Macau due to the upcoming release of treated water&nbsp;from&nbsp;the Fukushima nuclear plant, an official&nbsp;from&nbsp;the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).
Japan&nbsp;is to start releasing more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive water&nbsp;from&nbsp;the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea on Thursday, more than a decade after the accident and amid harsh criticism&nbsp;from&nbsp;China.
China, the&nbsp;biggest importer of&nbsp;Japanese&nbsp;seafood, will take measures to protect&nbsp;its&nbsp;marine environment, food safety and public health, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. Beijing has already&nbsp;banned imports&nbsp;from&nbsp;some&nbsp;Japanese regions.
In the latest set of measures, the Asian financial centre of&nbsp;Hong&nbsp;Kong&nbsp;and the gambling hub of Macau -- both special Chinese regions -- will&nbsp;ban&nbsp;aquatic product imports&nbsp;from&nbsp;10&nbsp;Japanese regions including Tokyo and Fukushima&nbsp;from&nbsp;Thursday.
The impact of the&nbsp;Hong&nbsp;Kong&nbsp;and Macau&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;bans&nbsp;could not be immediately calculated but would be 'significant', the official at MAFF said declining to be identified due to the ministry's policy.
China, also&nbsp;Japan's top scallop buyer and a major consumer of sea cucumbers, imported 87.1 billion yen ($600 million) worth of&nbsp;Japanese&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;last year, or a fifth of&nbsp;Japan's total&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;exports, according to the MAFF data.
Hong&nbsp;Kong,&nbsp;Japan's second&nbsp;biggest&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;market after mainland China, which the ministry calculates separately, bought 75.5 billion yen worth of&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;from&nbsp;Japan, the data shows.&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;seafood&nbsp;export data includes pearl exports.
While strongly criticizing the water release, China has allowed another 9 companies&nbsp;from&nbsp;Russia - which shares some fishery areas with&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;in the Pacific - to export aquatic products, bringing the total number of allowed exporters to 894 firms, Russia's food safety watchdog said on July 31.
Russia and China have questioned the Fukushima water release plan.&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;has said the feedback&nbsp;from&nbsp;the two was 'unsupported by any scientific evidence', adding that pollution levels in the water will be below those considered safe for drinking under World Health Organization standards.
Japan's top fishery lobby has said it feared reputational damage&nbsp;from&nbsp;the water release, which&nbsp;Japan&nbsp;says is safe and has been practised by other countries. The government would be ready to suspend the release if unusually high concentrations of radioactive materials are detected.
($1 = 145.4600 yen)
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(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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Japan expects big hit from Hong Kong ban on most of its seafood