S.Korea temporarily suspends U.S. beef imports

SEOUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) - South Korea has temporarily suspended imports of U.S. beef after the first U.S. case of the deadly mad cow disease was found in a sick animal in Washington state, the agriculture ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement said the government would take the same action as it had taken against Canadian beef earlier this year. South Korea banned beef imports when Canada reported its first case of mad cow disease in a decade in May.

The United States accounted for two-thirds of South Korea's total beef imports between January and October, when the U.S. shipped 208,636 tonnes of beef, according to the South Korean agriculture ministry's Web site.