A total of 287 kilograms of American beef were imported to Korea through Mexico since Korea banned imports of American beef following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Washington State last December, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) on Wednesday.
The MAF announced Wednesday, out of the 38 tons of beef imported, 287 kilograms of American beef were shipped into Korea through Mexico.

The American beef will be shipped back, an MAF official said. Korea will ask Mexico to better regulate its meat processing plant so that the shipments to Korea do not contain American beef.

``None of the 38.4 tons of beef exported by the meat processing plant in question has been released, and all of it is in storage,’’ Yonhap news quoted Park Jong-myung, the administrator of the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service, as saying.

The Korean government will inspect all Mexican beef imports in the future by verifying the contents of each package instead of just taking samples from 3 percent of them as required by current guidelines.

Korean inspectors will be dispatched to Mexican meat processing plants that export beef to South Korea to prevent a recurrence.

The nation imported 413 tons of beef from Mexico this year, of which 201.6 tons has been circulated.

Korea is the third-largest importer of American beef after Japan and Mexico. In the first 10 months of last year, Korea imported 187,300 tons of beef from the U.S., equal to 68.2 percent of total beef imports.