The government will name 39 uninhabited remote islands by the end of March to establish the basis of Japan's exclusive economic zone, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Monday. The top government spokesman told a press conference the government has given top priority to naming such islands as the basis for defining Japan's EEZ, an area adjacent to the territorial sea where the country is accorded with rights to natural resources under international law.
As 49 of 99 such remote islands were nameless, the government named 10 of the islands in May last year, Fujimura said. According to the Cabinet Secretariat, the 39 other islands are mostly located around the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, where a Chinese fishing boat collided with a Japan Coast Guard vessel in September 2010.
The government plans to decide on the names with consent from local municipalities and specify them on maps and charts. China and Taiwan lay claim to the Senkaku Islands, which are located in the southern Japan prefecture of Okinawa.