HK likely to lift ban on US beef
(Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2005-10-25 13:42

The Hong Kong SAR Government is likely to lift a ban on U.S. beef imports this week, the South China Morning Post reported Monday.

The ban was imposed two years ago after a single case of mad-cow disease had been confirmed in a Washington state dairy.

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department confirmed that the Hong Kong government was meeting U.S. officials to solve the trade dispute that followed the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) scare in December 2003.

The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong has been lobbying the SAR government to resume U.S. beef imports, citing measures taken by their agriculture department to prevent the spread of BSE.

An U.S. official said his nation had adopted several public health safeguards, such as removal of specific risk materials associated with the spinal column, removal of meat and bone meal from cattle feed, increased surveillance and testing for BSE and the prohibition of disabled cattle for use as human food.

Some 52 countries, including the EU's 25 member states, Canada, Mexico and Norway, have since resumed U.S. beef imports.

If the imports from the U.S. are resumed, the biggest loser will be Canadian beef imports, which had risen 40-fold since 2002.