April 12, 2012

US beef shipments to Japan likely up this year

As US meat exporters see a strong chance Tokyo will relax import curbs on ebbing concerns of mad cow disease, US beef export volumes to Japan are expected to jump about a quarter this year, the head of a key US export group said on Wednesday (Apr 11).

Japan now only allows imports of US and Canadian beef from cattle aged 20 months or less, but its Food Safety Commission (FSC) is assessing the risk of easing the limit to 30 months.

Although the rules, in place since 2005, freed up US beef imports after a total ban in 2003, they have capped US imports while Australian beef has largely retained its dominant market share in Japan's 500,000 tonnes-a-year market for imported beef.

"I'm very enthused that finally Japan's Food Safety Commission is looking at this 20-month level and possibly going beyond 20 months," Philip Seng, chairman of the US Meat Export Federation, told a news conference during a visit to Tokyo.

"We expect the movement during this year."

The federation expects US beef exports to Japan to rise to 150,000 tonnes this year from 120,000 in 2011, Seng said, taking into account the chance of deregulation of the import curbs.

The value of US beef exports to Japan could rise by US$1 billion if the import curbs are relaxed, the federation has said. Seng also said the federation expected US pork exports to Japan to rise to 340,000 tonnes in 2012, up 5% from a year earlier. The US last year took a share of 41% in Japan's imported pork market of 793,000 tonnes, or JPY416 billion (US$5.1 billion) by value, official trade data show.

The FSC assessment, begun in December, aimed to review Japan's beef importing rules 10 years after Tokyo decided to ban imports from countries hit by mad cow disease, known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

Last year, beef from BSE-free Australia accounted for two-thirds of Japan's total imported beef market of 517,000 tonnes, or JPY210 billion (US$2.6 billion) by value. Beef demand in Japan then stood at 868,000 tonnes, with the remainder of roughly 351,000 tonnes, or 40% of the total, filled by locally produced beef.

"We only (reached) half of the exports we used to be, so, we still have ways to go," Seng told Reuters on the sidelines of the news conference, referring to the pre-ban US beef export level of 200,000 tonnes or more a year.