Japan | U.S.-Japan Set Framework For Resumption Of Beef Trade | “The firs...
Japan
U.S.-Japan Set Framework For Resumption Of Beef Trade
“The first and most important step toward resumption of trade,” President & CEO Philip Seng called the agreement today (April 24) between the U.S. and Japanese governments on protocols aimed at the resumption of beef exports to Japan.
“This doesn’t mean that we will be shipping beef to Japan next week,” Seng noted. “What it does mean is that both governments recognize the mutual importance of U.S. beef trade and the need to base future trade decisions on science, and that they have laid out a plan and a timetable that will lead to trade resumption. This is a critical and needed first step. I compliment the negotiating teams of both countries for their effort to establish this framework for future discussions.”
Under the agreement, spelled out in a joint English and Japanese press release issued late Saturday night in Tokyo (http://www.usda.gov/Newsroom/0165.04.html), the U.S. and Japan will “actively engage in consultations, including a working group…over the period of this summer. At the same time, the two sides will respectively pursue domestic discussions and make efforts so as to reach a final conclusion by sometime around summer on the resumption of the importation of both American and Japanese beef.”
The agreement calls for the establishment of a technical working group, composed of technical experts from both sides, who will meet monthly until this summer to discuss six technical issues:
1) Definition of BSE and method of testing;
2) Definition of specified risk materials and the method of removal;
3) Appropriate surveillance;
4) Appropriate feed ban implementation;
5) Cattle month-age identification; and
6) Other issues.
The working group is to be “launched” in mid-May, and is to be composed of BSE experts and working level government officials from both sides. The framework also calls for U.S.-Japanese consultations during the working group deliberations at the undersecretary/director-general level should it be needed. Finally, the framework calls for communication with the public, via press briefings, by the working group.
Initial Japanese media reaction to the press release Saturday night was relatively muted, Vice President, Asia Pacific Joel Haggard, reported, with several television stations providing brief and factual coverage of the major elements of the press release. Haggard and USMEF Vice President, Export Services Paul Clayton attended the meetings at USDA’s request with Dr. J. B. Penn, Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services.
More details of the accord are in a USMEF news release , which is available online.
Japan
U.S.-Japan Set Framework For Resumption Of Beef Trade
“The first and most important step toward resumption of trade,” President & CEO Philip Seng called the agreement today (April 24) between the U.S. and Japanese governments on protocols aimed at the resumption of beef exports to Japan.
“This doesn’t mean that we will be shipping beef to Japan next week,” Seng noted. “What it does mean is that both governments recognize the mutual importance of U.S. beef trade and the need to base future trade decisions on science, and that they have laid out a plan and a timetable that will lead to trade resumption. This is a critical and needed first step. I compliment the negotiating teams of both countries for their effort to establish this framework for future discussions.”
Under the agreement, spelled out in a joint English and Japanese press release issued late Saturday night in Tokyo (http://www.usda.gov/Newsroom/0165.04.html), the U.S. and Japan will “actively engage in consultations, including a working group…over the period of this summer. At the same time, the two sides will respectively pursue domestic discussions and make efforts so as to reach a final conclusion by sometime around summer on the resumption of the importation of both American and Japanese beef.”
The agreement calls for the establishment of a technical working group, composed of technical experts from both sides, who will meet monthly until this summer to discuss six technical issues:
1) Definition of BSE and method of testing;
2) Definition of specified risk materials and the method of removal;
3) Appropriate surveillance;
4) Appropriate feed ban implementation;
5) Cattle month-age identification; and
6) Other issues.
The working group is to be “launched” in mid-May, and is to be composed of BSE experts and working level government officials from both sides. The framework also calls for U.S.-Japanese consultations during the working group deliberations at the undersecretary/director-general level should it be needed. Finally, the framework calls for communication with the public, via press briefings, by the working group.
Initial Japanese media reaction to the press release Saturday night was relatively muted, Vice President, Asia Pacific Joel Haggard, reported, with several television stations providing brief and factual coverage of the major elements of the press release. Haggard and USMEF Vice President, Export Services Paul Clayton attended the meetings at USDA’s request with Dr. J. B. Penn, Undersecretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services.
More details of the accord are in a USMEF news release , which is available online.