Tokyo – Japan will ease its 2-year-old ban on U.S. and Canadian beef next week, a move that could put American steaks on Japanese plates by 2006, news reports said Wednesday as the country’s Food Safety Commission prepared a report on the embargo.
The government had already indicated it would resume some imports with a go-ahead from the commission. Tokyo has sent Washington a schedule for easing the ban by Monday, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Similar reports were published by the Nikkei and Mainichi newspapers and the Kyodo News agency.
Centennial-based National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has estimated an economic loss for the U.S. cattle industry of $3.14 billion a year due to the Japanese embargo. Colorado is the nation’s fourth-largest beef producer. No one from the beef association could be reached for comment late Wednesday.
The food commission today is to present its report stating that there is little difference in the risk of mad cow disease between North American and Japanese beef, said commission spokeswoman Akiko Hosokawa. The commission’s report will be presented to the Health and Agriculture ministries, which will then make their recommendations to the government, she said.
The U.S. has been pressuring Japan hard to lift the ban on beef imports. The ban was put into place in December 2003 after the first discovery of mad-cow disease in a U.S. herd. Before then, Japan was the most lucrative overseas market for U.S. beef.
