South Korea restarted quarantine inspections of U.S. beef on Friday in line with a new import agreement, with the American product expected to hit local store shelves as early as next week.
South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that defying intense public concern over the safety of American beef, Seoul implemented Thursday the April 18 deal and a protocol restricting imports to beef from cattle 30 months old and less.
"Inspectors went to nine warehouses where U.S. beef is in frozen storage and picked sample packages for examination," the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said.
Seoul can check up to 3 percent of all packages from the United States, compared to 1 percent of those from Australia and New Zealand.
The examinations are being conducted after five local meat importers requested that their packages be checked late Thursday after Seoul officially lifted its eight-month-long ban on U.S. beef imports earlier in the day.
The 5,300 tons of beef that will be checked first are owned by 57 local companies. The products imported last year have been in storage since Seoul halted all quarantine inspections in early October after repeatedly findings banned backbones among the imports.
Quarantine officials started checking some packages with X-ray machines Thursday in anticipation of a surge of inspection requests by importers.
The official said the April 18 pact permits importation of all beef cuts from cattle under 30 months old including backbones, ribs and intestines, but any packages that have labeling discrepancies can be sent back or destroyed.
"If there are no problems, the 13 individual shipments that are being checked should clear quarantine in about three days and be turned over to importers," he said.
The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, meanwhile, said that new shipments of beef that meet updated guidelines may not reach the country for at least a month since it will take at least two weeks for U.S. meat backers to establish an age-verification quality system assessment program for shipments to South Korea.
It said because it takes 15 days for shipments to reach South Korea from the United States by boat, packages containing U.S. bone-in beef like T-bone steaks, cow bones, tails and tongue may arrive around the end of July or early August.
The move to open the market to U.S. beef has drawn fire from the general public and sparked daily demonstrations by thousands of people. Critics have claimed that U.S. beef remains unsafe for consumption and that measures taken to keep out meat from older animals are only temporary and will not be effective unless a new import standard is imposed.
Source:Xinhua
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