December 7, 2005

South Korea delays decision on US beef imports

South Korea's agriculture ministry said Wednesday its livestock quarantine committee has postponed a decision on whether to resume importing US beef until sometime next week.

The committee - comprising government officials, scholars, producers and consumer groups - was unable to reach an agreement at its previous meeting Nov 29, the ministry said in a statement.

Although the committee agreed there is little chance that US beef is contaminated with mad cow disease, based on a review in October by local experts, it failed to find common ground on whether to resume imports, citing a lapse in the monitoring system for cows in the US, the ministry said.

South Korea banned imports of US beef in December 2003, following an outbreak of mad cow disease in the US.

Mad cow disease, scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a brain-wasting disease in cattle related to a disease in humans called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

South Korea imported 293,605 tonnes of beef in 2003, of which US beef totalled 199,410 tonnes.