South Korea to Resume U.S. Beef Imports
South Korea to Lift a 2003 Ban on U.S. Beef Imports Imposed Because of Mad Cow Fears
SEOUL, South Korea - (AP) - South Korea on Friday approved resuming imports of U.S. beef after repeated delays in implementing an earlier decision to lift a 2003 ban imposed because of mad cow fears.
South Korea's Agriculture Ministry said 36 U.S. slaughterhouses designated to handle meat for export to South Korea met required safety measures, clearing the last hurdle to the resumption of imports. The country had previously been the third-largest market for U.S. beef.
South Korea will notify the slaughterhouses of the approval Monday, and the beef can start to be sold in the South Korean market some 25 days later, the ministry said in a statement.
South Korea shut its doors to U.S. beef imports in December 2003 after the first U.S. case of mad cow disease.
Scientists believe the illness formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy spreads when farmers feed cattle recycled meat and bones from infected animals, and is linked to a rare, fatal human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
In January, South Korea agreed to resume American beef imports on a limited basis boneless meat only from cattle younger than 30 months old as it believes some material inside bones could be dangerous to consume and the younger animals are safer from mad cow disease.
But the actual resumption of imports had been delayed over the implementation of measures to ensure meat safety.
The main problems had been that some of the U.S. slaughterhouses designated to handle meat for export to South Korea either did not separate American and foreign beef, or failed to differentiate between tools used to slaughter old cows and younger animals.
