President: The permissible amount of ractopamine is comparable to the international 10ppb

President Ma Ying-jeou met with former U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Ren Zhushan this morning on the 16th, and took the initiative to mention that he hopes the Legislative Yuan's extraordinary session to be held on the 24th will be able to resolve the U.S. beef issue. Regarding the "safe tolerance" standard for ractopamine, he said that he plans to follow the United Nations "Codex Alimentarius Commission" (Codex) and set a maximum residue tolerance of 10ppb.

In his speech, President Ma said that resolving the issue of U.S. beef will help to quickly resume negotiations on the Taiwan-U.S. Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), which had been suspended for five years. He reiterated that once U.S. beef imports are allowed, the principles of "safety allowance, separation of cattle and pigs, mandatory labeling, and exclusion of offal" will be adopted to ensure the food safety of the people.

Regarding "safe tolerance", the President said that he plans to set the maximum residual tolerance of ractopamine at 10ppb, in accordance with the standards adopted by Canada, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and other countries and Codex. As for the "separation of cattle and pigs", the president said that this is based on the fact that the Chinese people eat much more pork than beef. As for pork, domestic pork accounts for 92% of all pork, and imported pork accounts for only 8%. The opposite is true for beef. Domestic beef accounts for only 7%, and the proportion of imported beef is as high as 93%, of which the United States accounts for the largest proportion, about one-third. This is the main consideration for adopting the "separation of cattle and pigs".

The president said that as a member of the World Trade Organization, Taiwan's foreign trade must comply with international norms. Failure to comply with relevant regulations may not only lead to sanctions, but also reduce the possibility of signing free trade agreements with other countries. Therefore, he appealed to the Legislative Yuan, hoping that the extraordinary session can successfully resolve the issue of U.S. beef.