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According to statements made by government officials, South Korea may bypass core parts of its eight-stage safety assessment toward resuming imports of U.S. bone-in beef in a move to speed up the process. Barring any major problems, bone-in U.S. beef is expected to be served at tables this fall.

The alleged move has prompted critics to blame the South Korean government for acting in line with U.S. demands rather than thinking about consumer fears over mad cow disease or potential financial damage to domestic livestock farmers. Bone matter is thought to carry a greater risk of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

On May 25, the U.S. government sent an official letter to the South Korean government asking South Korea to revise its safety conditions on imports of U.S. beef. The move comes after a ***[May 19]*** ruling by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) that U.S. and Canada are ‘risk-controlled countries’ when it comes to mad cow disease. Specifically, the U.S. in the letter asked South Korea to fully open its market to U.S. bone-in beef by revising the January 2006 agreement that allows imports of only boneless U.S. beef from cattle younger than 30 months.

In response, the South Korean government held a press conference on May 28 and said it would consider revising the January 2006 safety conditions based on its own risk assessment process, which consists of eight stages along with the World Trade Organization’s guarantee of importer’s rights to the nation in question.

But comments by government officials at that press conference have led to fears the government is essentially going to bypass the first five risk assessment stages in order to speed up the process.

Finance and Economy Minister Kwon O-kyu told reporters at the press briefing, "A specific agreement on safety conditions for beef imports between South Korea and the U.S. can come under the sixth stage [of the eight-stage process]. We will begin consultations about the sixth stage at as early a date as possible, by swiftly progressing talks for the first to fifth stages."

Agriculture Minister Park Hong-soo also suggested that the government may bypass the first to fifth stage, telling reporters at the briefing, "The first to fifth stages [of the risk assessment process] are administrative steps, and core parts began from the sixth stage."

The remarks were in sharp contrast to the government’s previous pledge that it would thoroughly assess safety conditions of U.S. beef through all stages of its eight-part risk assessment process. Immediately after South Korea and the U.S. reached a free trade agreement on April 2, Agriculture Minister Park said, "We will begin our eight-stage risk assessment [of U.S. beef] if the OIE’s ruling comes out positive, as the OIE’s ruling is just a reference, not an absolute standard," Park said. The OIE has also been criticized for abridging its own risk assessment procedure from five to three steps in 2005.

Unlike Minister Park, experts have called the first five stages of the Korean government’s risk evaluation process ‘core procedures.’ The first stage is a review of whether the beef imports are likely to be approved; the second is a questionnaire regarding mad cow disease risk sent to the country in question; the third is a review of the responses given to the questionnaire; the fourth involves on-site inspections of sanitary conditions in that country’s farms and slaughterhouses; the fifth stage is debate over whether to approve of the beef imports; the sixth stage is consultation between the two countries on the sanitary conditions; the seventh stage is notification of the public regarding the findings regarding sanitary conditions, as well as related legislation; and the eighth is approval of the beef imports and consultations regarding quarantine specifics.

In fact, the first to fifth stages comprised 12 of the 19 months it took for South Korea to assess safety conditions for imports of boneless U.S. beef in 2005; When South Korea assessed risk regarding imports of Argentine beef, the first stage alone took two years.

The South Korean government argued it can swiftly implement the first to fifth stages because it already has data from the U.S. side from the previous assessment of boneless beef between 2005 and 2006. But these comments mean that South Korea would apply the same safety standards to bone-in beef as it did to ‘boneless U.S. beef from cattle younger than 30 months old,’ meat with a significantly lower risk of carrying mad cow disease.

Critics evaluated the government’s efforts to speed up U.S. bone-in beef imports as part of pressure from the U.S., which has unofficially linked the opening of South Korea’s beef market with the pending Congressional ratification of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]