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Japan won't use beef import curbs next year-paper

Posted on: Sunday, 11 December 2005, 01:08 CST

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan, which will soon lift a two-year ban on U.S. beef imposed due to mad cow disease, will refrain from employing safeguard curbs against an expected surge in meat imports next year, a local daily said on Sunday.

In a bid to prevent friction with the United States, the government plans to raise the hurdle for imposing emergency curbs against beef imports, the Nihon Keizai financial daily said.

Under the current safeguard system, higher tariffs would automatically be imposed on beef if imports increase by more than 17 percent year-on-year over a certain period, the paper said.

This means that such curbs would likely be imposed as early as next August if U.S. beef imports resume, it said.

The government is considering a change in which current-year import levels would be to compared to levels over the preceding three years rather than to year-ago levels, when determining whether safeguards would be imposed, the paper said.

The government plans to submit legislation to parliament next year to make needed changes, it added.

Farm ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

The report came after Japan's Food Safety Commission said on Thursday it had approved the easing of a two-year government ban on U.S. and Canadian beef, paving the way for partial imports to resume this month.

Japanese media have reported that the government would officially announce an easing of the ban on Monday.

Japan banned U.S. beef in December 2003 after the discovery of the United States' first case of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), halting annual trade worth some $1.4 billion.

Drawn out negotiations over lifting it have irked U.S. politicians, several of whom have called for retaliatory sanctions on Japan if the ban is not removed.

Source: REUTERS

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