TOKYO, March 19 (AFP) - The Japanese government, sushi lovers and seafood traders at Tokyo's massive Tsukiji fish market on Friday cheered the defeat of a proposed cross-border ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna.

"It was good," Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters after a UN wildlife meeting in Qatar voted down a proposal to ban the international trade of bluefin caught in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.

"It means the import of bluefin tuna will continue for the time being, and I think it's good that the price of bluefin tuna will not rise further," Hatoyama said.

But he added that Japan "should be on alert as we still don't know what will happen" until the end next week of the meeting in Doha of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

A smiling Finance Minister Naoto Kan said he often enjoys "negi-toro", minced fatty tuna mixed with leek usually served on rice.

"It's good that I will be able to keep eating it," he said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano, the top government spokesman, said: "I am relieved that it was voted down last night. I am delighted about that.

"It is important to control natural resources as Japan has argued," he added in a regular news conference.

The proposal for the ban, put forward by Monaco and supported by the United States and the European Union, was crushed by 68 votes against with 20 in favour and 30 abstentions at the meeting on Thursday.

The European Commission said the trade ban's rejection threatened the survival of the ocean predator, while environmental group Greenpeace also warned the vote "sets the species on a pathway to extinction".

Japan consumes three-quarters of all bluefin caught in the world's oceans, mainly raw as sushi and sashimi. A piece of "otoro" or fatty underbelly now costs 2,000 yen (22 dollars) at high-end Tokyo restaurants.

Decades of overfishing have seen stocks crash by more than two-thirds in the Mediterranean, from where giant freezer ships have long headed for Japan.

Fish traders and chefs at Tokyo's Tsukiji market, the world's biggest, were heartened that they will be able to keep importing the species, which arrives snap-frozen by the hundreds for daily pre-dawn auctions.

Tuna traders at Tsukiji, the size of more than 40 football fields, last week staged a protest against the proposed trade ban on the fish, which has fetched as much as 175,000 dollars for a 232 kilogram (511 pound) specimen.

"It's really good that the proposal was voted down. Japanese people love tuna and salmon," said sushi chef Satoshi Suzuki, as he rolled out tuna for the lunchtime crowd at a restaurant on the edge of the market.

He said he recognised Japan should manage marine resources sustainably but added that ordinary people do not consume the prized fish in large quantities.

"People don't eat bluefin tuna everyday unless they are rich," he said.

Japan had fought hard in Doha and elsewhere to block the proposal, arguing instead that quotas are the best way to keep stocks of the fish from collapsing.

The foreign ministry said it would continue its lobbying so that the rejection will be formally adopted at the March 24-25 concluding meeting of CITES. (By Kyoko Hasegawa/ AFP)