Japan intends to expand beef imports

Press, 24 July 1984, Page 12

Japan intends to expand beef imports

NZPA-AP Tokyo Japan has told Australia, its main foreign beef supplier, that it will gradually increase its global beef imports over the next four years from 141,000 to 177,000 tons annually said an official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The new agreement was reached in talks led by Mr Akira Tanino, a Councillor of the Ministry’s Livestock Industry Bureau, and Mr R. J. Hall, First Assistant Secretary of the Australian Department of Trade, the official said. But a large amount of the increase in the global quota will be taken up by expansion from -30,800 tons to 58,400 tons, of the quota for high quality beef, already agreed to in earlier talks with the United States. The United States is the main supplieqjjn that category. Chill® beef imports to

Japan which come mainly; from Australia, will remain at 24,000 tons annually over the next four years, Kyodo news service reported. The official said the two sides would meet again to work out details of the new accord. Japan’s last quota agreement with Australia expired in March 1983, and a long series of negotiations had failed to produce a new agreement. Australia supplied 70 per cent of Japan’s foreign beef in the fiscal year ended March, but had expressed concern that its share of the Japanese beef market would be severely affected, by the United States-Japan quota agreement concluded in April. Under that agreement Japan and the United States agreed to boost the American beef quota by 6900 tons a year over the years. -X