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S Korea opens to US beef ahead of FTA talks

South Korea said yesterday it had reached a deal to open its market wider to US beef imports, potentially removing a major trade irritant just one day before a summit between the two countries.

Efforts to pass a separate wide-ranging free trade agreement (FTA) will top the summit agenda.

But US legislators have warned they will not approve the trade pact until the beef dispute, which costs US farmers hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is settled.

“Following overnight consultations that lasted into early Friday, the two sides are working on the wording of an agreement,” Seoul’s agriculture ministry said.

Details would be released later but a spokesman indicated that Seoul has relaxed its restrictions on what kind of beef could be imported.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (Amcham) said the deal would allow imports of all cuts of beef from cattle of all ages.

South Korea was once the third largest market for US beef, with imports worth US$850 million a year before Seoul banned imports in 2003 because of fears of mad cow disease.

It eased the ban in 2006 but allows only meat from cattle aged 30 months or less and excludes bones and other materials deemed to carry a risk of spreading the disease.

STOP AND GO

Seoul has suspended imports several times after discovering banned material in shipments. It effectively halted all imports last October after backbones were discovered in a shipment.

Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, said in Washington the FTA would top the agenda when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and US President George W. Bush meet formally for their Camp David summit today.

“Now that this major beef obstacle has been overcome, Amcham is also cautiously optimistic that the US Congress will no longer have a reason to oppose consideration of this historically and commercially significant agreement,” the chamber said in a statement.

Both Lee and Bush are pushing for the trade pact to be ratified by their respective legislatures.

The FTA will be “a mutually beneficial deal” that would also reinforce the two countries’ military alliance, Lee said on Thursday in Washington.

But the pact faces strong opposition in US Congress over the beef issue and claims it does too little to free up US auto exports.

Cattle growers denounced the move.

“We cannot accept any deals which are dangerous to our people. US beef products, which are still seen as unsafe, should not become the subject of political bargaining,” said Kim Yong-won of the Korea Beef Association.

He said the group would continue its campaign against US beef.

THE PRICE OF HEALTH

A survey in January showed that 85 percent of South Korean housewives consider US beef unsafe.

However, most of them said they would still consider buying it if it were roughly 10 percent cheaper than beef from Australia — the No. 1 beef exporter to South Korea last year.
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