More than 2,000 tonnes of US beef has piled up at Japanese customs warehouses after this month's renewed import ban, an industry official said yesterday.
Tokyo eased its ban on US beef imports on Dec. 12, but halted imports again Jan. 20 after a beef shipment arrived in Japan with banned spinal bones in it. Japan considers such bones to be at risk for mad cow disease.
Some 1,380 tonnes of beef products imported from the US have been held up at Japanese ports since Tokyo halted the imports for the second time, or are currently in shipment, said Tatsuo Iwama, executive director of Japan Meat Traders Association.
By adding those imported by companies outside the association's 17 US beef importers, the amount of stranded beef products could reach as much as 2,300 tonnes, Iwama added.
The cost for the importers would be as much as ? billion (US$17 million), he said.
Most of the intended US beef imports were high-quality chilled beef, with the consumption date expiring within two months, Iwama said.
He said the association plans to ask the government's help to arrange a deal so they can have the US exporters take them back and cover the entire cost.
Responsibility
"The problem was caused by the US side, so we would like the party with primary responsibility to take care of the cost. It's so unfortunate that we're going through the trouble immediately after the import resumed," Iwama said.
According to Japanese customs inspector Koichi Tsunokami, goods subject to import suspension are usually returned to senders, sent to a third country or disposed of, because keeping unwanted goods only costs importers storage fees.
"The US beef products cannot go through customs and there will be no quarantine for them. They will have to be returned to senders, sent to a third country or disposed here," Tsunokami said.
When Japan banned US beef products in December 2003, most Japanese importers sent them back to exporters, he added. Many others burned them at their own expense.
According to a poll released by the Asahi newspaper yesterday, 62 percent of the Japanese said they don't want to eat US beef when it returns to Japanese stores, compared with 30 percent who said they would try it. The Asahi, which surveyed 1,915 adults through telephone interviews over the weekend, gave no margin of error.
The US beef products issue on Monday also brought chaos to parliament as Japanese Agricultural Minister Shoichi Nakagawa admitted Tokyo failed to inspect US cattle facilities before easing the ban, inviting a flurry of criticism and prompting opposition lawmakers to walk out of a session.
Suspicious parts
The Food Safety Commission approved lifting the previous ban on conditions that imports be limited to meat from cows aged 20 months or less and that parts of cattle thought to be at particularly high risk of containing mad cow disease be removed.
Japan's farm minister, facing calls to quit after failing to follow the Cabinet's policy of inspecting US meatpackers before allowing beef imports to resume, said yesterday he had no intention of stepping down.
Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa admitted on Monday that Japan had only begun the inspections after lifting the ban.
"I am not considering leaving my post," Nakagawa told a news conference yesterday.
"My duty is to carry out agriculture administration and ensure food safety," he said, adding that Japan was waiting for a US report before it would restart beef imports.
The public furore over the minister's admission on Monday is another headache for the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, which is grappling with a series of scandals.
The main opposition Democratic Party had called for Nakagawa to resign after he acknowledged the government's promise had not been kept, and a consumers' group echoed that stance.
"The Japanese government should not have accepted what the United States said at face value, but should have checked the US safety measures and policy itself," said Hiroko Mizuhara, secretary general of the Consumers Union of Japan.
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