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USDA, Korea.........Closed

Mike

Well-known member
Today 12/6/2006 1:33:00 PM


USDA Secretary: S. Korea Effectively Closed To US Beef



WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said Wednesday he believes South Korea is effectively closed to U.S. beef shipments even though the country says officially that its border is open. South Korea announced in September the easing of its ban on U.S. beef, but Johanns told reporters Wednesday that the country’s market is just as unobtainable as it was before September.



South Korea has no intention of allowing any U.S. beef to pass import inspection, Johanns said. He stressed that South Korea “found a way to reject“ U.S. beef.



In this latest and third rejection of a U.S. beef shipment since South Korea said its market was open, 10 tons were turned away because import inspectors said they found a bone fragment “the size of one half of a grain of rice.“



The USDA recently sent a delegation to Seoul to ask that the two countries establish a bone fragment tolerance level. No agreement was reached.



“This is a hyper-technical effort to try to find a reason not to accept U.S. beef,“ Johanns said Wednesday.



And U.S. exporters know now that South Korea’s market is effectively closed, Johanns said.



“I don’t think we have anything else heading in that direction and I’ll be very surprised if anything does head that direction until this is resolved,“ he told a gathering of reporters in his Washington, D.C., office.



South Korea was the second-largest foreign market for U.S. beef before the USDA announced finding the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, in December 2003. South Korea, along with most major importers, immediately banned U.S. beef.



Johanns said he is still hopeful that the two countries can work out a solution that will allow beef trade to resume, but at the moment the differences in positions are substantial.



Johanns said that if further negotiation doesn’t work, the U.S. would consider asking for resolution from the World Trade Organization, although he stressed he would prefer if that wasn’t necessary.



Source: Bill Tomson, Dow Jones Newswires 202-646-0088 [email protected]
 

PORKER

Well-known member
DJ UPDATE: US Cattle Grp:Beef Trade With S Korea December 2006


By Bill Tomson
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES


WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Exporting beef to South Korea just isn't going to be
possible because of the country's complex rules and strict inspections that
create too steep of a barrier for U.S. producers, the largest U.S. cattle group
said Friday.

South Korea partially lifted its ban on U.S. beef in September and has
rejected the only shipment a U.S. producer has dared to send so far under
little-understood regulations.

It would be better, the U.S.-based National Cattlemen's Beef Association
said, if the U.S. Department of Agriculture revoked its export protocol for
South Korea.

"NCBA no longer wants cattle producers to hold out empty hope for
opportunities within the Korean market given the evidence thus far that bona
fide trade isn't possible," the group said.

In a letter sent Friday to President George W. Bush, NCBA complained that
South Korea's "partial re-opening has been an uphill battle since the beginning
of the year and the recent shipment rejections due to miniscule bone fragments
is simply the last straw."

South Korea took the extraordinary step of x-raying a nine-ton shipment of
U.S. beef - the first and only since the ban was eased to allow in boneless
product - and after three weeks of inspection time found a coffee-bean-sized
piece of bone or cartilage, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture
officials. As a result, South Korea rejected the shipment and suspended
Creekstone Farms Premium Beef LLC - the U.S. supplier - from further exports.

USDA officials have tried to get South Korea to agree to a tolerance level
for small bone fragments in beef shipments, but failed.

"U.S. cattle producers have been extremely patient for almost three years
now, but South Korea continues to find baseless excuses to block U.S. beef from
access to their market," NCBA said in the letter to Bush. "These protectionist
actions are extremely destructive, especially in light of talks regarding a
U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement."

U.S. and South Korean negotiators are now in the midst of work on a
wide-ranging free trade agreement, but U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the
country's rejection of U.S. beef may jeopardize those efforts.

Roberts, in a letter sent this week to South Korea's ambassador to the U.S.,
said the country's actions seem "to be based on nothing more than a continued
effort by Korea to build false barriers to trade between our two countries" and
he stressed that "will lead me to seriously question Korea's commitment to any
other trade and foreign policy agreements with the United States."

South Korea was the second-largest foreign market for U.S. beef before the
USDA announced finding the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or
mad-cow disease, in December 2003. South Korea, along with most major
importers, immediately banned U.S. beef.


-By Bill Tomson; Dow Jones Newswires; 202-646-0088; [email protected]


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

12-03-06 1902ET

Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

19:02 120306


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