July 16, 2010
South Korea becomes world's third largest US beef importer
South Korea has become the third largest US beef importer, after Mexico and Canada, on the back of a 66% surge in imports in the first five months of 2010 against on-year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday (July 16).
South Korea imported a total of 37,117 tonnes of US beef worth US$163 million in the January-May period, the ministry said, citing statistics released by the USDA and compiled by the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF).
According to the ministry, US beef imports in South Korea amounted to 22,360 tonnes in volume and 83.8 million US dollars in value during the same period last year. With its strong import growth, South Korea surpassed Japan for the first time to become the largest market for US beef in Asia. Japanese imports of US beef reached 36,698 tonnes in the January-May period.
The full opening of the South Korean market to US beef is forecasted to be one of the key issues for working-level talks on the Korea-US free trade agreement, expected to resume in late September. However, experts say that at the current stage it is hard to predict the influence of the increase in US beef exports to South Korea on the upcoming FTA negotiations.
