The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a proposal to lift a ban on importing Canadian beef from cattle older than 30 months.
The new rules are to take effect immediately, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Director Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅) told a news conference.
Taiwan previously only imported Canadian beef from cattle under 30 months old. It lifted similar restrictions on imports of US beef from cattle over the age of 30 months on Jan. 1, 2021.
Photo: Tsai Shu-yuan, Taipei Times
Due to the relatively long incubation period of mad cow disease, cows aged under 30 months are generally thought to be at lower risk of having the disease.
The FDA on April 27 issued a notice on lifting the ban and commenced a 30-day public comment period before the Cabinet approved the proposal.
However, Taiwan will still ban specific risk materials for Canadian beef imports, including the brain, eyes and spinal cord, among other parts, Wu added.
After the ban is lifted, Taiwan would randomly select batches of imports for inspection at a rate of 2 to 10 percent, she said.
Imported products that fail an inspection would be destroyed or returned, and if the number of violations becomes concerning, such imports would be subject to “enhanced random inspections” or “batch-by-batch checks,” Wu added.
Currently, 55 countries, including the US, the UK and Japan, allow imports of Canadian beef, Cabinet spokesman Lin Tze-luen (林子倫) told the news conference.
The move to allow imports of Canadian beef from cattle over the age of 30 months came after a government source said that the ban could be a major stumbling block between Ottawa and Taipei, as they negotiate a deal to encourage two-way investment, called the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement.
The source said progress on reaching a deal was going “very smoothly” until negotiations turned to the 30-month slaughter-age limit.
The source added that the government was hopeful that Canada would support Taiwan’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The Consumers’ Foundation in a news release yesterday called for a boycott of Canadian beef, saying the North American nation’s last reported case of mad cow disease was fairly recent and it has not clarified feed contamination concerns.
When Ottawa reported a case of mad cow disease in December 2021, South Korea, China and the Philippines stopped importing Canadian beef, it said, opposing the government’s decision to open imports.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
RSS