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Decision opens door for imports, price drops anticipated locally
May 24, 2007
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| With the World Organization for Animal Health’s decision that U.S. and Canadian beef are safe from mad cow disease, the two countries are putting more pressure on Korea to fully open its beef market. The organization, based in Paris, has decided to classify Brazil, Chile, Switzerland, Taiwan, Canada and the United States as having successfully controlled mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, yesterday. An official announcement will come on Friday. Experts are predicting that U.S. beef on the bone, previously banned, will enter Korea as early as September. Right after the decision was made known, Mike Johanns, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, declared that the United States would “use this international validation to urge our trading partners to reopen export markets to the full spectrum of U.S. cattle and beef products. “We are notifying our trading partners of our expectation that they commit to a timeframe to amend import requirements and expand access to their markets to reflect this controlled risk determination.” Opening the Korean market again to U.S. beef had been a key demand of American trade negotiators during the recently concluded free trade talks. Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said U.S. beef is safe and that there is no further reason for blocking imports. “Korea, Japan and China must immediately fully open their beef markets,” said the lawmaker, whose committee is crucial to ratification of the free trade deal with Korea. The Korean government acknowledges that current regulations on beef imports may need to be amended, said an official at the Agriculture Ministry. If so, the current guideline allowing only boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old would have to be altered to allow in virtually all American beef. Australian beef, which is dominant in the market, may lose share if U.S. beef returns. In 2003, before U.S. beef was banned due to fears of mad cow disease, it held almost half the local beef market. The decision didn’t immediately influence the local cattle price, according to the Agriculture Ministry. “But hanwoo [Korean cattle] prices are definitely expected to drop when U.S. beef is imported in massive amounts,” said Kim Seong-ho at the livestock department of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation. By Park Hye-min JoongAng Ilbo/ Hwang Young-jin Staff Writer [yhwang@joongang.co.kr] |
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