South Korea’s meat imports in 2011 are expected to reach $3 billion, up nearly 55 percent from a year earlier, with imports of pork more than doubling, the country’s customs office said Sunday.

In the first 11 months of the year, the country imported 850,000 tons of meat, including beef and chicken, worth over $2.95 billion, according to the Korea Customs Service. The 11-month total represents a 52.9 percent hike from $1.93 billion in the same period in 2010.

The increase was largely led by pork imports, which jumped to 460,000 tons in the January-November period from 289,000 tons in the same period a year earlier. The amount of money spent on pork imports more than doubled from $660 million to $1.36 billion.

Beef imports also gained 27 percent on-year to $1.4 billion from $1.1 billion.

An official from the customs office attributed the imports increase to a domestic price hike sparked by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in late 2010, which led to the culling of over 3.7 million animals here before dying out in April.

“Meat imports increased significantly amid a great surge in pork imports to curb domestic prices that skyrocketed last year,” the official said.

In June, the Seoul government removed all tariffs on 130,000 tons of fresh and frozen pork to help keep prices from rising.

Continued price hikes later forced the government to withdraw tariffs on all fresh pork imports until the end of September, with the only exception of fatback. 

(Yonhap News)