Japan
Japan is Australia's largest beef export market in volume and value terms. It is also a modest market for Australian lamb and mutton exports.
US beef
The Japanese market was re-opened to US beef in July 2006. The US had been the largest supplier of imported beef to Japan up until 2000, and had a 46% share in 2003 (behind Australia's 49%) before their first BSE case in late December of that year. In June 2007, Japan agreed to lift 100% box inspection on US beef, after the government inspection team had found no major problems at the US export certified meat plants.
However, Japan currently restricts imports of US beef to cattle under 21 months of age, with specific risk materials removed. The US had been requesting an easing of this age restriction, after the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) granted the US 'controlled risk' BSE status in May 2007. The process of changing the age protocol will require extensive consultations with the Japanese industry and consumers led by Japan's Food Safety Commission - a consultative panel to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW).
Protein consumption
Japan's beef consumption totalled 840,649 tonnes (boneless equivalent) in 2009. This was an increase of 3% from 2008, but still 22% lower than 2000 (before the discovery of BSE in Japan), and 10% less than 2003 (prior to Japan's ban on US beef due to BSE). Consumption of imported beef in 2009 increased 4% year-on-year, to 478,624 tonnes, while domestic volumes rose 1%, to 362,025 tonnes.
Total meat protein consumption in 2009 remained the same as 2008 at 4.23 million tonnes. With more consumers eating at home to conserve disposable incomes, home consumption volumes for beef during 2009 increased 4% year-on-year, to 7kg per household. Reduced retail beef prices compared with the previous year - caused initially by the low A$, then price competition and the deflationary economy - also assisted the partial recovery in home consumption.
Food supply and self-sufficiency
Japan's total beef supply (domestic and imported) on a per capita basis - an indicator of Japanese beef consumption - lifted 0.2kg year-on-year to 5.9 kg/head during the 2009 Japanese fiscal year (JFY, April 2009-March 2010), according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan.
Per capita beef supply peaked in the 2000 JFY, at 7.6kg/head, but declined after the outbreak of BSE in Japan in 2001, and in the US in 2003. The lift in the 2009 JFY was largely the result of a weaker A$ during the first half of 2009 and the subsequent fall in beef import costs, as well as a growth in US beef imports into Japan.
The beef self sufficiency rate in the 2009 JFY was 43%, down 1% from the previous year due to an increase in beef import volumes.
Safeguard
In the Uruguay round of the WTO negotiations, it was agreed safeguards could apply to beef imports in Japan in exchange for dropping tariff rates from 50% to 38.5%. The safeguards are calculated and applied separately to chilled and frozen beef imports. The safeguards are triggered when the cumulative quarterly increase in chilled or frozen beef imports exceeds 17%. The system runs on a Japanese fiscal-year basis which begins in April. If the safeguard is triggered, Japan has the right to increase the tariff from 38.5% to 50% for the remainder of the Japanese fiscal year.
Read more on the safeguarding system in Japan
More information
Ryoko Uchida
Phone: 1800 023 100
Email: japan@mla.com.au
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