The risk would be very low, if proper precautions are strictly followed, ... And even if imports are resumed, we must consider halting (imports) once again if those conditions are not met.

Based on the assumption that all precautions are taken as requested, we consider the difference in risk between U.S. and Japanese beef to be extremely small.

We concluded that with regard to the risk of mad cow disease, the difference between Japanese beef and meat from American cattle aged 20 months or below is very small.

We are in the final stage of wrapping up our discussion,

I did not expect the latest incident to happen as I had believed the Japanese government would conduct inspections and make sure (that the conditions for beef imports were sufficiently met) before the actual importing.

I did not want to make a conclusion today and tell those who were absent to accept it.