Mask resellers could face 1 year in prison, ¥1 mil fine under new ban

The reselling of face masks for profit becomes a criminal offense punishable by using a one-year prison sentence or a 1 million yen fine, or both, amid surging call for spurred with the aid of the coronavirus epidemic, the Japanese authorities said Tuesday.

The new rule, aimed at stopping would-be profiteers from taking advantage of a nationwide scarcity of face masks, will take effect on March 15.
Reselling face masks at the identical price they had been bought at, or at a lower price, will still be allowed, an authentic at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry stated, stressing that the guideline isn’t supposed to hold people from distributing them to pals and family.

“We want to ensure that the average client can get their arms on mask,” the respectable stated.

The rule will be implemented via a revision to the law on emergency measures for stabilizing the living situations of the public, which changed into enacted in 1973 in reaction to panic buying at some stage in the oil crisis.

While other products along with disinfectants and diapers may be delivered later if deemed necessary, the government plans to lift the rule after call for returns to normal.
The ministry had asked e-commerce corporations to briefly suspend online auctions of face mask beginning on March 14, however the step became not enough to deter resellers.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has vowed to boost the country’s supply of face mask to six hundred million a month, with a particular consciousness on providing them to daycare and nursing facilities.
But producers have struggled to meet the unexpected surge in demand, with empty cabinets at drug stores and supermarkets turning into a common sight in current weeks.

The trouble has been exacerbated as what little stock exists is snapped up by using resellers and presented at exorbitant costs through e-commerce websites together with Rakuten and Mercari.
In a distinguished instance of price gouging, an assemblyman in imperative Japan turned into revealed to have made 8.9 million yen off of promoting packets of 2,000 face mask in on line auctions for between 30,000 yen to 170,000 yen each. He later apologized.

The reliable said it changed into unclear whether the assemblyman, 53-year-antique Hiroyuki Morota of Shizuoka Prefecture, could have been charged underneath the new rule because he runs a trading agency and may not be categorised as a reseller.