Brasília – This Wednesday (2nd), the Brazilian interim minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, Tatiana Prazeres, said Brazil may file a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the countries which announced an embargo on Brazilian beef for suspected contamination with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as the mad cow disease.
According to Prazeres, the government believes the barriers on Brazilian product are unjustified. The interim minister commented on the matter while disclosing the 2012 trade balance results.
The possibility of filing with the WTO had already been mentioned by the secretary of Agricultural Defence of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply, Ênio Marques Pereira. Last month, he said the government will wait until March 2013 for the countries which stopped buying Brazilian beef to lift the embargo. Since the first countries announced the embargo, Brazil is working to turn the ban around by providing information on the case.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the case which has been confirmed in the state of Paraná concerns an animal that died in 2010 was a non-classical case of the disease. The ministry informed that although the agent that causes BSE was present, the mad cow disease did not manifest itself. According to official information from the ministry, so far, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Africa, Taiwan, Jordan and Chile have adhered to the embargo. Egypt has banned imports from the state of Paraná only, and Chile has only ceased to buy meat and bone meal from Brazil.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
