Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 16 • Number 3 • 25th January 2012

South Korea Lifts Ban on Canadian Beef Imports

Discuss this articleShare your views with other visitors, and read what they have to say

Canada and South Korea appear ready to bring their nearly decade-long beef trade dispute to a close, after Seoul announced it would immediately open its borders to Canadian beef from cattle under 30 months old. The 20 January announcement follows the temporary suspension of a related WTO dispute in summer 2011 that had meant to facilitate a negotiated solution between the two countries.

South Korea’s ban dates back to 2003, when the Asian country - along with other nations - shut its borders to all Canadian and US beef products, in response to North American producers being linked to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz welcomed the move, calling it a “significant breakthrough” and a victory for Canadian diplomacy.

“Our government has worked tirelessly to ensure the Korean market is re-opened to high-quality Canadian beef,” Fast said in a statement. “The Korean government’s decision to restore access is the direct result of these efforts.”

In 2002, Canada exported over US$40 million in beef products to South Korea, making it the fourth-largest market for Canadian beef at the time. Reopening the Asian market is considered essential to bringing Canadian beef production back to 2002 numbers.

“There are still a number of key markets where we need expanded access in order to return to pre-2003 market access levels,” Travis Toews from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association explained in a first reaction to the announcement.

Full access for all beef products to Korea has not been gained, and barriers also remain in other markets, including Japan, that date back to the BSE crisis, Toews added.

South Korea, where the public is particularly sensitive to food safety concerns, had long been reluctant to ease to ban. Already in 2003, after tests on cattle herds showed that all tested animals were free from BSE, many countries, including the US and Japan, began to ease restrictions for Canadian beef. But South Korea maintained the original ban, even after the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) classified Canada as a zone with controlled BSE risk in 2007.

Seoul’s 2008 decision to reopen its market to US products resulted in months of anti-government protests in the country. Following this, observers were pessimistic on the chances of market access for Canadian beef.

Only in 2009, after Canada initiated a WTO dispute (DS391) on the matter, was South Korea ready to discuss easing the ban (see Bridges Weekly, 22 April 2009). Canada, contending that there was no scientific evidence to justify South Korea’s persistence in maintaining the ban, cited violations of the WTO’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Agreement - which governs rules pertaining to food safety - as justification for a WTO panel to investigate South Korean barriers to trade.

“The United States, which has the same OIE controlled-risk status as Canada, obtained access to the South Korean beef market in June 2008,” Stockwell Day, then Canada’s Minister of Trade, complained at the time.

But bilateral talks between the parties continued in parallel to the dispute as Korea tried to avoid a high-profile loss at the global trade body. In July 2011, shortly after the parties were informed about the preliminary findings, the two nations agreed to a negotiated solution and a temporary suspension of the dispute (see Bridges Weekly, 6 July 2011). The new announcement puts this agreement into effect.

ICTSD reporting; “South Korea’s market now open to Canadian beef,” CBC NEWS, 20 January 2012.