February 7, 2011

US beef is making its prominence in South Korea as its beef imports made a sharp leap in volumes due to the devastating foot-and-mouth (FMD) outbreak in the Asian country, according to industry data on Sunday (Feb 6).

The US Meat Export Federation said that South Korea imported 84,822 tonnes of US beef in 2010, up 42.6% compared to the previous year. This bettered the nation's overall increase in beef imports of 16.2%.

American beef accounted for 32.5% of the nation's imported beef market last year, up from 26.5% the preceding year. It trimmed the deficit with market-leading Australian beef, whose share was 53% in the same year.

It is a strong comeback for US beef. South Korea prohibited the import of American beef in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was discovered and the ban remained in place until 2008.

The decision to resume imports triggered two months of huge demonstrations, inflamed by biased television reports portraying US beef as a possible transmission vector for the human variant of mad cow disease.

The industry attributed the animal epidemic to the fast-growing demand for US beef.

The current FMD outbreak was first confirmed in November and it has spread nationwide, forcing over 3 million livestock to be killed thus far. Financial losses have risen to more than KRW2 trillion (US$1.79 billion) and led to a drop in meat supplies.

In December, imports of US beef underwent a sudden increase to nearly 2,500 tonnes a week, well above the average of 2,000 tonnes, the data noted.

The US leads the imported pork market with 26.1%, or 75,362 tonnes, followed by Canada with an 18.9% share.

"As local meat supplies decline due to FMD and public concerns rise over the disease, Korea is expected to increase its dependence on imported meat," an industry official said.