Beef, trade on table in Uruguay for South Korean PM
AFP | 5 Jan 2011
Beef, trade on table in Uruguay for South Korean PM
MONTEVIDEO — South Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-Sik was to open three days of talks in Uruguay Tuesday to advance plans for a trade pact with the region and to hear pleas to end Seoul’s ban on Uruguayan beef.
Kim arrived in Montevideo after stops in Brazil and Paraguay where his government raised the possibility of a trade deal with South American trade bloc Mercosur.
The South Korean leader was to meet Uruguayan President Jose Mujica at the presidential ranch in Anchorena, some 180 kilometers (110 miles) west of the capital and later sign agreements with Vice President Danilo Astori on sports cooperation and visa waivers.
Uruguayan authorities are keen to end the South Korean ban on Uruguayan beef imposed in 2001 after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the South American nation.
Uruguay has been declared free of FMD as well as mad cow disease, but fresh meat sales from the country to South Korea have not yet resumed, although frozen beef is exported.
To make the point, Mujica will serve a lunch heavy on local beef accompanied by a label with bar code to show the farms producing the cattle and photos of the producers, part of a tracking system used by most Uruguayan producers.
The talks will "seek to reaffirm the political commitment for the resumption of Uruguayan beef" exports to South Korea, said Foreign Minister Luis Almagro.
"There had been talk of the possibility of (resolving the dispute) late this year or first half of next year, but we’ll see now," said Almagro.
The talks come as South Korea raised the prospect in Brazil of a Korea-Mercosur free trade agreement.
Almagro said this kind of deal "would be of great interest and the highest priority" for Uruguay.
Uruguay has had a trade deficit with South Korea in the last five years: in 2010 the deficit was 77.67 million dollars, based on official data.
Uruguay’s biggest exports to South Korea are dairy products such as ricotta cheese, and it also sells lumber, frozen fish, leather and wool.
At its December summit, Mercosur, comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, signed preferential tariff agreements with India, Malaysia, Morocco and South Korea.
Mercosur is currently engaged in free trade agreement talks with the European Union.
