January 8, 2007

US unlikely to have beef shipment talks with South Korea

The US is likely to delay talks with South Korea on a dispute over Seoul's rejection of US beef shipments, an official said Sunday, Jan 7.

The two sides were scheduled to meet in Seoul Monday and Tuesday, Jan 8 and 9 to discuss South Korea's decision to turn back all three recent shipments of US beef citing they contained banned bone fragments.

The US, however, failed to send a list of its delegation to the talks as of Sunday, and the meeting looks unlikely now, said Lee Sang-kil, a director-general of South Korea's Agriculture Ministry.

South Korea, formerly the third-largest foreign market for US. beef, shut its doors to US beef imports in December 2003 after the first reported US case of BSE. 

It later resumed imports last year, on the condition that the US would only send boneless meat and from cattle younger than 30 months old.

Imports resumed in October, but US beef has never reached South Korean consumers because quarantine authorities rejected all shipments that have arrived so far for containing tiny bone fragments.

Consumer sentiment in South Korea about US beef has been negative because of "mad cow" concerns.