TOKYO (AFP) – Japan said Tuesday it has no plans to ease long-standing trade restrictions on US beef imposed over mad cow disease, two days before talks in Tokyo between the two on the issue.

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was travelling to Japan Tuesday for a four-day visit in a renewed attempt to settle the long-running dispute that has created friction between the allies.

But Japan’s Agriculture Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said he “has no plan to ask the government’s food safety commission to review US beef”, even if Vilsack demands it during their meeting scheduled for Thursday.

“Asking for a review by the food safety panel would mean Japan was heading in the direction of changing its trade restriction,” Akamatsu told a news conference. “Honestly speaking, I don’t expect to do so.”

Japan, which used to be the largest importer of US beef, stopped the imports after mad cow disease was detected in an American herd in late 2003 and has only resumed limited imports since then.

As the ban threatened to turn into a trade war, with US farm state senators seeking sanctions, Tokyo agreed in 2006 to resume US imports from cattle under 20 months, except for high-risk parts such as brains and spine bones.

Japan’s US beef imports now stand at only around 10 percent of their former peak, while Australia has become the biggest beef importer.

US farm state senators have again accused Tokyo of being too rigid on its beef ban which continues even though no new cases of the brain-wasting cattle disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy have been detected in years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States pressed Japan on Monday to lower barriers to exports of U.S. beef and insurance services, but praised Tokyo for other steps it has taken to open its market.

“Normalizing trade for U.S. beef and securing a level playing field for U.S. insurance providers are two issues that remain of serious concern,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement accompanying the annual results of the two country’s regulatory review initiative.

“I look to Japan to ensure these concerns are addressed as quickly as possible,” Kirk said.

Japan, which ran a $72.7 billion trade surplus with the United States in 2008, was the number one market for U.S. beef before it banned imports in December 2003, after the first case of mad cow disease was found in the United States.

It reopened the market in July 2006 to U.S. beef and beef products from cattle aged 20 months or younger, considered to be lower risk for the disease, formally known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

But U.S. exporters have only recovered a small portion of the $1.4 billion in sales to Japan they enjoyed before the December 2003 mad cow disease occurrence.

The United States says Japan should allow beef imports from cattle of all ages, in line with international guidelines set by the World Organization for Animal Health.

Japan’s insurance market is the second largest in the world after the United States, with an estimated $300 billion in net premiums paid each year.

But the Japan Post Insurance Co. dominates the country’s insurance market, holding roughly one-third of the 189 million life and annuity insurance policies in force in Japan, according to a recent USTR report.

A U.S. trade official, speaking on condition he not be identified, told reporters Japan Post‘s “obligatory 10-year contract to sell insurance products through over 20,000 post offices in Japan” gives it a major advantage over other insurance companies.

There’s also “a good bit of evidence that points to Japan Post Insurance not yet fully being in compliance” with rules and regulations that private insurers have to meet to compete in the market, he said.

Kirk praised other steps the United States’ fourth largest trading partner and goods export market has taken to reduce regulatory barriers.

Those included:

* New steps to accelerate regulatory reviews for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

* Making it legal to knowingly download movies and music made from unauthorized Internet sources.

* Establishing a new import inspection framework to facilitate trade in U.S. horticultural products.

* Opening new opportunities for nonbank providers of electronic fund transfer services.

* Approving new food additives for imports.

* Strengthening Japan’s competition law regime by boosting penalties against cartel leaders and extending the period for bringing action against anti-competitive acts.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Philip Barbara)

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US, Japan make progress on opening Japanese market

US trade envoy says US makes progress toward opening Japanese market

• On Monday July 6, 2009, 5:50 pm EDT
  
  

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States says it has made progress in opening Japan’s market to foreign investors.

The U.S. trade envoy’s office said Monday in an 86-page report that the countries were acting to speed up regulatory reviews for pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

The report stems from annual meetings to overhaul regulations.

The United States says the countries also have strengthened protections for music and motion pictures and improved entry and exit requirements for Americans doing business and living in Japan.

U.S. trade envoy Ron Kirk says that fully allowing American beef into Japan remains a priority. Japan imposed a ban on U.S. beef in 2003 after mad cow disease was detected in the United States.