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US hopes to ‘beef up’ exports to Taiwan

A complete opening of the Taiwan market to US beef is a priority issue for Washington in future bilateral talks as many trade-related issues are on hold, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday, without giving a timeline for when a deal could be reached.

Department of North American Affairs Deputy Director-General Michael Hsu (徐佩勇) said the US was anxious to begin large-scale exports of its beef to Taiwan, but the Taiwanese government was holding off on a decision because of a lack of public consensus.

“The issue of US beef is of great importance to Taiwan. The Department of Health [DOH] sent experts to the US twice to inspect meat safety and both times reported they did not detect any problems,” Hsu said, but added that the government must continue to carefully consider the issue because of public hesitation.

American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young at a press conference in April said that on beef and pork imports, the US would begin discussion with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to “apply the same scientific principles that have been embraced in international agreements and international organizations like the OIE [the World Animal Health Organization].”

The issue of US beef raised much ire in South Korea when imports were resumed there in April. More than 150,000 protestors battled riot police in tumultuous demonstrations with scores injured. Two months later, the South Korean Cabinet offered to resign en masse over the beef crisis.

Taiwan first banned US beef in 2003 when cattle in Seattle were diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease.

In April 2005, Taiwan lifted the ban to allow US boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old, but the ban was reinstated two months later when a second BSE case was confirmed in the US.

The DOH, without a green light from the legislature, lifted the ban in January the following year but had to reinstate the ban four months later when bone fragments were discovered in a beef shipment.

Taiwan has historically been one of the top six importers of US beef, according the US Meat Export Federation.

US pork also stirred major controversy in Taiwan last year, especially among hog farmers, when two US pork shipments were found to contain the feed additive ractopamine, which is legal in the US and other countries but outlawed in Taiwan.

Bureau of Food Sanitation Deputy Director Hsieh Ting-hung (謝定宏) refused to give an actual figure on the permissible ractopamine level in pork, saying only the additive must not be detected in meat in Taiwan.

Young is expected to speak on the meat import issue at a press conference this morning.
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