America agrees to restrict beef exports to Korea

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-22  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

ALL US beef exported to South Korea will come from cattle younger than 30 months, officials said yesterday, in a deal made to placate South Korean protesters worried about mad cow disease.

An age-verification system will be set up to ensure that only United States beef from young cattle is exported, said South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon.

The agreement was reached earlier in the week between Kim and his US counterpart, Susan Schwab, in Washington, he said.

South Korea will "not import US beef from cattle older than 30 months until consumers' confidence improves," Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun said. Younger cattle are considered less at risk of mad cow disease.

The deal was made in an effort to halt daily demonstrations in South Korea over the past month that have brought tens of thousands of protesters to the streets and threatened the stability of President Lee Myung-bak's government.

Weeks of anti-government protests climaxed a week ago with a candlelight rally that drew some 80,000 people. The protests have since dwindled as the government began seeking to limit an April beef import deal with the US that did not impose any age restrictions.

South Korea was the third-largest overseas market for US beef until it banned imports after a case of mad cow disease was detected in 2003 - the first of three confirmed cases in the United States.

US beef producers said they were prepared to limit exports to South Korea to meat from cattle less than 30 months old, according to a letter posted on Friday on the Website of the US Meat Export Federation, one of three associations representing the US beef industry.

Lee replaced his new chief of staff and seven other senior presidential secretaries on Friday in a bid to soothe public outrage over the plans to resume US beef imports. The entire Cabinet also has offered to resign over the beef issue, but the president has not yet said which ministers will leave the government.

It was unclear whether the new agreement on young beef would satisfy the protesters.

A coalition of civic groups that has organized the protests said on Friday it would keep rallying against Lee, and that only a complete renegotiation of the April beef deal could resolve the turmoil.