12/19/05 South Korea and U.S. beef

American Rancher December 19, 2005 Now that Japan has partially reopened for shipments of U.S. beef the focus has shifted to South Korea. There the government delayed for the second time last week a decision on ending their two year old ban on U.S. beef imports. A Korean ag ministry official said however that a decision will probably be made this week. But Jay Truitt, vice president of public policy for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, thinks that timeline is overly optimistic. Truitt: "There is a time period they could make the determination. It is important for everybody just to keep in mind that it is our understanding that there are several weeks of a process still to go through in South Korea. So we shouldn't expect anything immediate. They have begun it and they have initiated the activity that they needed to do and they were committed to do but there are a number of steps in their process and they seem to be completing them pretty much as expected. But we shouldn't look for Korea to be open imminently. It is not an immediate activity." Beyond South Korea, Truitt says Taiwan and Hong Kong may take some political pressure to get reopened. Truitt: "South Korea has its own problems. They are dealing with that. We are going to be respectful of that process because they have been good faith partners throughout this whole process. Hong Kong and Taiwan on the other hand we found ourselves caught up in a political quagmire there that may take some sorting through before U.S. beef is flowing." Meanwhile, the first shipment of U.S. beef to Japan in nearly two years did arrive there late last week. I'm Bob Hoff.