SEOUL |
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea held an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday to deal with a rapidly expanding outbreak of foot and mouth disease while the government asked local slaughter houses to work on holidays to boost meat supply, though increased imports are ruled out for now.
The meeting, led by president Lee Myung-bak, was held to discuss changes in disinfection and precautious measures against foot-and-mouth, according to the government officials and local media. No further details were yet available.
The meeting follows last week’s first emergency meeting where Lee asked for fundamental measures against the disease.
Asia’s fourth-largest economy has culled 10 percent of its cattle and pigs as it tries to contain the foot-and-mouth outbreak, triggering a spike in domestic beef and pork prices and exacerbating food inflation.
The government on Tuesday announced plans to boost food supply to cope with rising prices ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
A South Korean agriculture ministry official said the country has no plans to boost imports now or cut import duties. The U.S. is the largest exporter of poultry and pork to South Korea and the second-largest beef exporter after Australia. Canada is the second-largest pork exporter to South Korea.
South Korea imposes about 40 percent of tariffs on imported beef, and about 25 percent of tariffs on imported pork.
“All meat imports depend on private importers. It is quite a sensitive issues for the government to say that we would boost imports by lowering tariffs, considering farmers, as a measure against foot-and-mouth diseases,” said the official who declined to be identified as he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Opening the market to further beef imports in particular has been a goal of a free trade agreement that need U.S. Congress approval, though the two sides have also worked to ease trade friction on the issue.
Front-month CME live cattle has gained almost 38 percent to a record high 109.50 cents a lb on January 11 from a near-term low reached on December 9, 2009 of 79.100 cents on optimism for domestic and export beef sales.
Front-month CME lean hog prices are down 11 percent for a record high of 90.175 cents a lb reached in May 2010.
RAISES BIRD FLU ALERT
While battling the serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, South Korea late on Tuesday raised its bird flu alert level to “watch” from “caution” after detecting the H5N1 avian influenza virus at poultry farms in four provinces.
There have been 34 suspected cases of bird flu in poultry, with 16 cases confirmed, the ministry said.
Outbreaks of bird flu have prompted the authorities to cull 470,000 poultry, or 0.4 percent of domestic stock, a ministry official said on Wednesday, while continuing the quarantine of commercial duck and chicken breeding farms in affected areas.
Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70B16820110112?feedType=RSSfeedName=healthNews
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