Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an advance notice that the country will lift a ban on the importation of beef from Canada beef over the age of 30 months.
The notice was issued on April 27 and will last for 30 days to allow the public to comment on the matter, according to the FDA.
Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智), deputy head of the FDA's Food Safety Division, said Canada obtained World Organisation for Animal Health negligible risk status for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in February.
The FDA therefore decided in a recent expert meeting to issue the advanced notice to lift the ban, following a field inspection and risk assessment, he said.
However, when exactly the ban will be lifted has not been finalized, he added.
The move to allow imports of beef over the age of 30 months came after a source from Taiwan's government said recently that the country's ban on Canadian beef from cattle over 30 months old was likely to prove a major stumbling block during talks on a proposed bilateral foreign investment promotion and protection agreement (FIPA) between Taipei and Ottawa.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said initial discussions on a possible FIPA progressed "very smoothly" until the beef issue came up.
On Jan. 1, 2021, Taiwan lifted restrictions on the importation of United States beef from cattle slaughtered after the age of 30 months.
Commenting on the food safety issue after the lifting of the ban, Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), head of Linkou Chang Gung Hospital's Clinical Poison Center, said there are two type of BSE: "classic" bovine spongiform encephalopathy (C-BSE) and "atypical" BSE.
The C-BASE occurs in cattle after consuming contaminated feed and can infect human beings, while atypical BSE is congenital, Yen said.
Yen said as far as he is aware, the FDA used information provided by Canada which showed the last C-BSE case in the North American country was reported in 2015. As a result, the Taiwanese agency agreed BSE risk pertaining to Canadian beef is low.
However, Yen cited news reports that Canada continued to report C-BSE cases until 2021 so the FDA should have traced the disease in a dynamic manner instead of using the fixed data provided by Canada.
If Canada reports new BSE cases in the future, the current risk assessment by the FDA will be invalid, and the risks will need to be reassessed, he said.
Although there is no evidence that Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which refers to "human mad cow disease," is related to C-BSE, Yen said from a medical point of view, the risk still exists.
Yen said vCJD currently has no cure so it is a very serious public health related problem.
In early February, Taiwan's top trade negotiator John Deng (鄧振中) made a joint announcement with Mary Ng, Canada's minister of international trade, export promotion, small business and economic development, that the two sides had agreed to begin formal negotiations on an FIPA, with the aim of spurring bilateral trade and investment.
The announcement came more than six months after the two sides concluded extensive "exploratory discussions" on the FIPA in June 2022.
Taiwan's Office of Trade Negotiations, headed by Deng, said in February that the FIPA negotiations would cover issues related to investment promotion, protection and liberalization.
The talks will also include measures to assist small and medium-sized enterprises and to support Indigenous peoples, women and other groups in the business environment, the office said.
The first round of talks under the FIPA was held on April 25.
