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Japan PM wary of early restart of US beef imports

Posted on: Monday, 20 February 2006, 05:15 CST

By Aya Takada

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed caution about an early resumption of U.S. beef imports on Monday, after the release of a U.S. report on how banned cattle parts got into a shipment of U.S. veal.

"I think that may be rather difficult," Koizumi told reporters, referring to the possibility of lifting the ban on U.S. beef.

"We need to deal with this without rushing...after carefully reading the report," Koizumi added.

The U.S. Agriculture Department on Friday issued a report on what went wrong with the shipment, which had prompted Japan to suspend U.S. beef imports on January 20, just a month after it ended a two-year ban on U.S. beef imposed over mad cow disease fears.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Japan may seek more information from the United States regarding the report.

"We want to study the report closely before evaluating the content," Abe told a news conference.

The remarks came after Kyodo news agency reported that Farm Minister Shoichi Nakagawa told Koizumi the U.S. report was "insufficient."

"I reported that, for the Japanese side, the contents were insufficient," Kyodo quoted Nakagawa as telling reporters after meeting Koizumi.

Before the two-year ban, Japan was the top importer of U.S. beef. In 2003, it imported 240,000 tonnes of U.S. beef valued at $1.4 billion, about one-quarter of total Japanese beef demand.

Japanese Vice Agriculture Minister Mamoru Ishihara said earlier on Monday that the government was carefully studying the report and might hold talks with U.S. officials if necessary.

"I think they spent sufficient time on the investigation, but it is too early to say whether the report fully answers all the questions we have," Ishihara told a news conference.

It will take more time for the Japanese government to assess the U.S. investigation, Ishihara said, adding that the government had not set a deadline for this assessment.

"We have to study it very carefully, although we should not spend an unnecessarily long time on it," he said.

Japan reinstated its ban on U.S. beef after its inspectors discovered banned spinal material in a veal shipment from New York.

UNDER FIRE

In December, Japan lifted a ban on imports of beef and beef offal from U.S. cattle aged up to 20 months, on condition that specified risk materials that could transmit the fatal disease, such as spinal cords, were removed before the meat was shipped.

The Japanese government -- which has come under fire from opposition critics for lifting the ban too quickly under U.S. pressure -- has said it could not allow imports to restart until Washington found the cause of the violation and took measures to prevent a recurrence.

The USDA report said a U.S. company shipped ineligible veal to Japan because the exporter and the USDA inspector were not familiar enough with the requirements of the Japan beef export program.

The veal was shipped by Atlantic Veal and Lamb and supplied by Golden Veal, both of which were certified on January 6. USDA personnel confirmed at that time that both understood the requirements of the program.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said on Friday that USDA inspectors would now undergo extensive mandatory training so they understand the beef export program.

Johanns also said he had no real insight into when the Japanese beef market would reopen, in contrast to a USDA report earlier this month that indicated shipments could resume in the second quarter.

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg and Takeshi Yoshiike)

Source: REUTERS

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