July 2, 2005

90 percent of imported beef in Japan from Australia

Japan imported 37,067 tonnes of beef during the month of February. This was up 30.9 percent over January but is similar to February 2004.

Fresh, chilled beef imports totalled 17,954 tonnes, 39.1 percent higher than the previous month but 4.3 percent lower than February 2004. Frozen beef imports stood at 19,088 tonnes, up 26.1 percent over January and up 4.9 percent over February 2004.

For February 2005, Japan imported 33,443 tonnes of beef from Australia. This is 31.6 percent more than the previous month, but 1.9 percent less than February 2004. Year-to-date imports from Australia equalled 58,857 tonnes, 6.6 percent more than a year ago.

Japan's beef imports from Australia made up 90.0 percent of its total beef imports. For the same month of February, beef imports from New Zealand rose 33.4 percent over January to 3,097 tonnes. This was 8.8 percent higher than February 2004. Total year-to-date imports from New Zealand were 13.8 percent greater than a year ago, amounting to 5,418 tonnes.

Japan's year-to-date total global beef imports were at 65,390 tonnes, 6.5 percent more than the same period a year ago. Total beef sales during February increased 8.8 percent over January and 5.1 percent over February 2004 to 61,813 tonnes. Imported beef sales were at 35,413 tonnes, while domestic beef sales were 26,401 tonnes.

Beef stocks at the end of February totalled 61,499 tonnes. Although this was up 2.5 percent over the previous month, it was down 12.0 percent from a year ago. Stocks of imported beef amounted to 52,188 tonnes, while that of domestic beef totalled 9,311 tonnes.