June 23, 2008
South Korea will take time to allow US beef
South Korea will slowly move in allowing US beef imports to calm down an angry public that has staged mass street protests against the product, according to a South Korean official.
Last weekend, South Korea and the United States has agreed a private-sector deal to restrict trade in US beef to cattle under 30 months and prohibits exports of other parts that are thought to pose a higher risk for mad cow disease.
A farm ministry spokesman said the process may "take a while" adding his ministry plans to carefully examine and implement the reworked import deal.
Hours after the revised beef deal was announced, rallies erupted in central Seoul. Protests already started in early May against the beef deal and later mushroomed into massive demonstrations against new President Lee Myung-bak, placing his government in crisis.
South Korea's trade minister, who went to Washington last week to modify the beef deal reached in April, said the legal procedures starting the flow of US meat back into what once was the third-largest overseas market for the product could start as early as this week.
President Lee's conservative Grand National Party said on Sunday (June 22) that was too fast.
South Koreans posted concerns on the Internet, stating the private-sector deal is enough to prevent material they feel poses a high risk for mad cow disease from entering the country.
Despite the drop of protests in recent weeks, and a poll taken on Friday (June 20) by a major daily said 60 percent of South Koreans thought it was time to end them, analysts said a misstep by Lee could spark a new round of mass street rallies.
The beef trade deal is one of the trade pacts with the United States, boosting its two-way deal, valued at US$78 billion a year, by about US$20 billion.
US lawmakers said Congress would not approve the trade deal, which has not been ratified in South Korea, unless Seoul fully opened its market to US beef.
Presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said the US-South Korea beef negotiations would be more than expected despite seemingly some unsatisfactory deals.
President Lee, who scored a landslide win in a December vote, last week apologized for the beef deal and started to shake-up his four-month-old government in hopes of trying to reverse a sharp drop in his public support rate.
Analysts said Lee, who vowed to be the "economy president," could not implement reforms such as privatization of state firms and corporate tax cuts unless he can win back a public that sees him as out of touch with its concerns.
