Japan eyes Australia, New Zealand to replace U.S. beef

Japan eyes Australia, New Zealand to replace U.S. beef

Reuters, Sydney

Japanese officials will visit Australia and New Zealand to
discuss increasing beef imports from the two countries after
Tokyo banned U.S. beef because of its first case of mad cow
disease.

Officials from the Japanese ministry of agriculture were due
to arrive in Australia on Thursday to meet cattle farmers in
northern Queensland state before heading to New Zealand on the
weekend, a Japanese Embassy spokesman in Sydney said on Tuesday.

Japan, the top overseas market for U.S. beef, suspended beef
imports from the United States immediately after the Dec. 23
announcement of the first U.S. case of mad cow disease.

"They decided to (investigate) Australia and New Zealand's
export potential," Koji Otani, a vice-consul at the Japanese
Embassy, told Reuters.

Japan imported about 534,000 tones of beef in the year through
March 2003. Almost half, 240,000 tones, came from the United
States.

Australia is Japan's other major supplier. It exported 277,300
tones of beef to Japan worth A$1.4 billion (US$1.1 billion) in
the year through June 2003, Meat and Livestock Australia figures
show. New Zealand exported 10,962 tons of beef and veal to Japan
in 2002.

Replacing American imports could almost double Australasian
beef sales to Japan, but there was concern that demand might
outstrip supply -- especially if other Asian nations came
shopping for beef, as the industry expected.

"It's about both the Australian and New Zealand industries
being able to meet the shortfall of imports from the ban on U.S.
products," said Mark Jeffries, the chief executive of industry
body Meat New Zealand.

A rare human form of the infection, known as variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), can result from eating animal
products contaminated with the brain-wasting cattle disorder.

Japanese government officials will meet with New Zealand
officials and industry representatives on Monday, Jeffries said.

However, he said Japan favored grain-fed beef, which has a
milder flavor than the grass-fed beef that New Zealand mainly
produces, although there may be an opportunity for the New
Zealand product to be introduced to a new set of consumers.

Japan has told U.S. officials that it is still too early to
discuss easing the import suspension.