Australia benefited from the closures of the Korean and Japanese markets to US beef following the first US case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 2003, but those markets are expected to ease restrictions on US imports this year.
‘The big drag on the [Australian] industry is the impact the US is likely to have in Japan and Korea’, said Peter Weeks, author of MLA’s report and the industry group’s chief economist. Japan and South Korea are Australia’s largest and third-largest export markets, respectively.
MLA says there will have to be a ‘significant readjustment of Australia’s beef exports from North Asia’ to other markets in Asia, the US and in Australia. Exports are forecast to rise from 2009 to reach a record 995,000 tons by 2011 and 1 million tons by 2012, the group’s experts said.
Australia is the world’s second largest beef exporter behind Brazil.
