01/02/06 Hong Kong opens to U.S. beef

American Rancher January 2, 2006 Last week Hong Kong announced it would again allow imports of U.S. beef. While its not the largest of export markets, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns says its an important market. Johanns: "Hong Kong is a good solid market. It is one of our top five markets. It wasn't the size of course that Japan was but again just a solid market. We are just confident that now that we have the market open we will start moving beef into this marketplace and it will be positively received by consumers. So it is just another step in the right direction." Hong Kong is agreeing to import boneless U.S. beef under 30 months of age under the Beef Export Verification Program. South Korea still has not reopened to U.S. beef but Secretary Johanns is optimistic. Johanns: "I am very encouraged by our discussions and I am encouraged that that market will reopen. And that will pretty well get us back not quite to normal beef trade because we still have work to do out there. We still have some work to do on the Japan market. But we will have restored the vast, vast majority of the beef market." What remains to be seen is just how much tonnage moves into these recently reopened markets which were closed to U.S. beef in 2003 when a case of BSE was discovered. I'm Bob Hoff.