June 8, 2004

Korea Beef Imports Fall By 50%

With the battering of international trade in beef by mad cow disease in North America and outbreaks of avian flu in Korea and elsewhere in Asia, Korea's international trade in pork has been increasing. For the first time, in the first five months of 2004, the nation's imports of pork have exceeded its imports of beef. Beef and chicken imports both fell compared to the value for the first five months of last year.

The Korea Customs Service said yesterday that beef imports from January to May were slightly less than 70,000 tons, a drop of over half from those of the same period in 2003. Pork imports exceeded 72,000 tons, up by two-thirds from the comparable period of last year.

For all of 2003, beef imports were triple those of pork. Chicken and duck imports both fell by about 70 percent each.