As reported in THE JAPAN TIMES of today, Japan’s farm minister Shoichi Nakagawa said February 20, 2006, that Japan plans to raise a range of questions with Washington regarding a shipment last month of banned bovine material, and measures to prevent a recurrence of what happened. He said that the report provided by the US is “insufficient.”

It will thus be several days before Tokyo finalizes its response to the report, in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture admitted to a flaw in the inspection system for beef exports to Japan and vowed to take various measures to prevent a repeat of the incident, Nakagawa said.

He spoke on Japan’s initial response to the report after visiting Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at his office to brief him on the contents of the U.S. effort.

“I reported that the contents are insufficient for the Japanese side,” Nakagawa told reporters.

Later Monday, Koizumi said he expects “it would be rather difficult” to quickly resume U.S. beef imports.

Dissatisfied with both the U.S. investigation into the cause of the shipment containing bovine backbone and the steps it will take to prevent it happening again, Japanese officials plan to quiz the U.S. side, he said.

On Friday in Washington, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, THE SUCCESOR TO MS. VENEMANN, WHO IS NOW THE HEAD OF UNICEF, released the report into the veal shipment containing backbone — a material banned under a bilateral agreement as a mad cow disease risk — which was detected Jan. 20.

In a news conference, Johanns reiterated his regret and apology for failing to comply with the agreement with Japan, but again stressed that the shipped beef posed no safety risk according to U.S. standards on mad cow disease.

Washington is expected to send USDA officials to Japan soon in order to explain their preventive measures and try to start negotiations to lift the import ban. On that matter, Nakagawa only said, “The U.S. side is free to do so.”

CREDIBILITY…CREDIBILITY… IT CAN KILL BUSINESS - see please previous articles.