Japan lifts ban on US, Canadian beef imports
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-12-12 10:58

Japan on Monday eased a two-year ban on American beef imposed due to mad cow disease, averting a trade war with Washington where lawmakers had threatened retaliatory tariffs unless beef trade resumed by mid-December.

In line with a recommendation from Japan's Food Safety Commission, the government said it had lifted a ban on imports of beef and beef offal from U.S. and Canadian cattle aged up to 20 months on condition that risk materials that could transmit mad cow disease be removed before the meat was shipped to Japan.

Japan will keep a ban on beef from older American cattle as they may be at higher risk from the brain-wasting disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Japan banned U.S. beef and beef products in December 2003 after the first U.S. case of BSE was found in Washington state.

Before the ban, Japan was the top importer of U.S. beef, with imports valued at $1.4 billion in 2003.

Japan banned imports of Canadian beef and beef products in May 2003 after the first Canadian case of BSE was confirmed.

Canada was a minor beef exporter to Japan, while the United States supplied about a quarter of total Japanese beef demand in 2003, estimated at 930,000 tonnes.

The ban produced a rising tide of anger and frustration in the United States, where lawmakers proposed retaliatory tariffs on Japanese products if it was not lifted by mid-December.

Always fatal, mad cow disease is believed to be caused by malformed proteins and spread through infected feed.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of BSE, is thought to be spread by eating contaminated meat. It has caused more than 150 deaths worldwide, including one in Japan.