Tepco allocates $500 million to compensate reputational damage from Fukushima discharges

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said on Wednesday it has set aside 75.3 billion yen ($500 million) so far to compensate businesses hurt by boycotts triggered by Tepco's discharge of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

China and Russia have banned seafood imports from Japan over safety concerns that Tokyo has said are scientifically unjustified.

Fukushima operator Tepco has vowed to compensate domestic businesses which suffer a fall in exports due to the bans.

Tepco began releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant last August.

It has conducted seven discharges from the plant, which was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011 in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

"We have carried out seven discharges to the sea without anomalies," Tepco's representative executive vice president, Hiroyuki Yamaguchi, told a news conference.

"While foreign governments continue to suspend imports of Japanese fisheries products, we thank everyone involved in supporting sales promotions and the expansion of distribution of domestic seafood," he said.

Tepco will continue to work to increase consumption of domestic fisheries products through sales promotion events, he said.

For the April-June quarter, Tepco booked 11.5 billion yen in expenses to cover damage related to the discharges, bringing the total compensation costs since last August to 75.3 billion yen.

The utility booked a 42% drop in quarterly net profit to 79.24 billion yen on Wednesday due to smaller gains from a time-lag effect in a fuel price adjustment mechanism.

It provided no annual forecast, citing uncertainty over when its flagship Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station will restart.

($1 = 150.4600 yen)

(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; editing by Jason Neely)