The European Union will continue to import high-quality U.S. beef from non-hormone-treated cattle at zero duty, extending an agreement for at least another two years, U.S. authorities said. The arrangement, originally signed in 2009, came in connection with the long-running dispute between the United States and the EU over Europe's ban on beef from cattle treated with certain growth-promoting hormones. The EU will maintain until Aug. 2, 2015 its duty-free tariff rate quota for non-treated beef, covering some 45,000 tons per year, the Department of Agriculture and U.S. Trade Representative's office said in a joint announcement. In the year since the current phase of the arrangement started, U.S. beef shipments under the quota were valued at about $200 million, up 300 percent from the year before the agreement came into force. "Before the memorandum of understanding was signed, the EU's beef market had been largely closed for far too long," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said. (Reuters)