South Korea is considering lifting its import ban on Canadian beef within the year if an understanding can be reached on maintaining trade limits on intestinal parts, government sources said Monday.
Sources at the farm ministry said that because Canada reported 17 cases of mad cow disease, Seoul will insist on tighter control for products that can be imported compared to U.S. beef.
"The goal is to retain the ban on so-called specified risk materials or SRMs that cover tonsils, internal organs and intestines, which pose the greatest risk of passing on mad cow disease to humans," an official, who declined to be identified, said.
Seoul lifted its ban on U.S. beef in late July 2008 after reaching a deal on what parts can be imported and a ceiling on the age of animals providing the meat. In the United States, there have been three reported cases of mad cow disease also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy that is suspected of causing the fatal, brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
The official added that Seoul is looking at guidelines set by the European Union on beef trade that effectively bans most SRMs imports to
protect its citizens.
Other insiders, however, said that even if an agreement is reached on Canadian beef in the coming months, the exact time of lifting the ban will be decided after deliberations take place in the National Assembly. This, the official speculated could take time.
Canada, which received a "controlled risk" status from the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health in 2007 at the same time as the United States, has been demanding Seoul lift its ban, and has taken the matter to the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement panel.
Before South Korea banned the imports in May 2003, Canada was the fourth-largest supplier of beef to South Korea after the United States,
Australia and New Zealand.