Some Asian countries have closed their borders but the impact will be small, he says
OTTAWA — Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz says he expects Canada’s beef customers to recognize the country’s BSE controlled risk status and keep trade flowing.
That said, South Korea, Peru, Taiwan, Belarus and Indonesia have stopped importing beef products and require convincing to reopen their borders.
Ritz told reporters Feb. 24 that South Korea had asked for more information about the BSE case that was confirmed in Alberta earlier this month, and he met with the ambassador. He wouldn’t say what the South Koreans wanted to know, but did say it’s within their right to close the border, even under the free trade agreement that took effect Jan. 1.
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“What they’ve done was expected because it was a sub-agreement to the FTA that should they see something like this, they could actually step back,” Ritz said.
“We would see the same thing on other issues. We’ve addressed the questions they’ve put forward. Of course it fell right into their lunar year celebrations, where nobody’s at work.”
He said he hoped officials would make the issue a priority once they returned to work.
No other countries had submitted questionnaires or indicated they would close their borders, Ritz added.
Asia is a small market for Canadian beef but the government and producers would like to see it grow.
“From a dollar perspective it’s small, but the potential is huge, so we take it very seriously,” Ritz said.
South Korea bought $25 million worth of Canadian beef last year, while Taiwan spent $12 million.
“The five countries, now that (they) have withdrawn, their total is some 2.2 percent of our overall beef market,” Ritz said. “Every market is valuable. We fight hard to get them and fight hard to keep them. We’ll keep addressing their concerns.”
Meanwhile, Ritz told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture convention that Canada continues to press the United States to fix its country-of-origin labelling law. He said it costs Canadian livestock industries more than $1 billion a year and twice that much on the American side.
The CFA meeting passed a resolution that if Canada imposes retaliatory tariffs in response to COOL, an amount equivalent to the money raised by the tariffs be invested in livestock research and market development.
