08/02/05 USMEF President on Japan and beef

American Rancher August 2, 2005 A lot of people have resigned themselves to the fact that the U.S. won't be shipping any beef into Japan or South Korea until sometime in early 2006. But Phil Seng, President of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, believes it could happen quicker than that. Seng: "Even in light of recent developments the Japanese have maintained that because they are going to be importing younger cattle they are not predicting there is going to be the delay that a lot of people envision. So I would say that the time-table that the Japanese are under probably would be realistically October-November. I think the Food Safety Commission has had three meetings People figure they will have to have about six meetings." Seng does say the U.S. will have its work cut out for it to regain the Japanese market effectively once it is reopened. He says it will take three or four years before the U.S. will be shipping a lot of beef to Japan, which of course was the number one export market for the nation's beef before December of 2003 when BSE was found in a U.S. cow of Canadian origin, prompting the Japanese to ban U.S. beef. For countries that still export to Japan like Australia, there could be an increase in tariffs later this year. Japan has safeguard measures that trigger higher tariffs if imports rise by 17 percent or more compared to the same period the previous year and the ban on U.S. beef has in effect lowered the threshold trigger for the safeguard. I'm Bob Hoff.