The new QSA regulations stipulate that both boneless and bone-in beef from cattle less than 30 months of age slaughtered after Nov. 2 can be exported to Taiwan, while only boneless beef from cattle slaughtered before that date can be sold to Taiwan.

With QSA certifications, U.S. bone-in beef will be subjected to that same inspection and quarantine procedures as those applied to boneless beef once arriving in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) official said.

"As ocean shipments from the United States to Taiwan takes seven to 10 days, the first batch of U.S. bone-in beef will be able to enter Taiwan's market after Nov. 17 at the earliest, " the official added.

The guidelines for the regulations were established in a protocol on U.S. beef imports signed by Taipei and Washington on Oct. 23, but the QSA stipulations and the age of the cattle from which exported beef can be obtained were more clearly addressed in the USDA's detailed document issued Nov. 9.

While the protocol did not specify that beef and beef products must be from cattle of any particular age, the new regulations state that only deboned and bone-in beef products from cattle "less than 30 months of age" will be shipped "as a temporary market transition measure." The protocol also gives market access to U.S. ground beef and beef offal, but the MOEA official said the possibility of the USDA issuing QSA certifications for these products is remote.

Moreover, he added, the bureaucratic procedures known as "three controls, five certifications" are also expected to help bar those products from entering Taiwan amid public fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease.

Meanwhile, Lin Hsueh-jung, director of the Bureau of Food Safety under the Department of Health, said U.S. beef exporters should submit three certificates -- QSA certificates, beef safety certificates and quarantine certificates -- when shipping their beef to Taiwan.

Once the products arrive at Taiwan's ports of entry, the MOEA's Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection and the Council of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine will respectively conduct random checks on the shipments, with 5 percent of the products expected to be inspected before entering Taiwan, Lin said.

On imports of U.S. beef offal and ground beef, which are considered to be potentially hazardous to human health, Lin said the MOEA has separated them from bone-in beef and given each of them a separate CCC Code classification number to facilitate import controls.

Prospective importers of U.S. beef offal and ground beef should file applications with the MOEA's Bureau of Foreign Trade, Lin said, but he did not anticipate many would because of the inspection procedures established.

(By Sinyao Shih, Chen Ching-fang and Sofia Wu)