The island only will allow meat that's boneless and cut from cattle less than 30 months old, the Department of Health in Taipei said in a statement on its Web site on Saturday.

The World Organization for Animal Health, based in Paris, voted last month to give Canada and the U.S. its ``controlled- risk'' rating for the brain-wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Taiwan had barred beef imports from Canada since May 2003.

``After reviews our experts concluded Canadian beef is safe,'' J.C. Wang, public relations chief at the Department of Health said by phone on Saturday.

The meat must come from farms certified by the Canadian government, he said.

Canada has had 10 cases of mad-cow disease since May 2003. The illness has a rare but fatal human form that has infected more than 150 people worldwide since the early 1990s. Most of the infections were in the U.K. where BSE first appeared.

Source: Bloomberg