TOPEKA ? A $420 million trade deal with Taiwan for cattle hides will mean more than $130 million to Kansas producers, officials said today.

“This is an enormous opportunity for the Kansas beef industry and the entire state economy,” said Howard Fricke, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce.

“The agreement is mutually beneficial to our Kansas hide producers and to Taiwan’s tannery industry,” Fricke said while a trade delegation from Taiwan visited Kansas.

The deal will send from between 5 million and 6 million hides to Taiwanese tanneries between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2007.

Since 1995, Taiwan has been the sixth-largest overseas market for American agricultural products, the second-largest per-capita consumer of U.S. agricultural products, and the third-largest market for U.S. cattle hides, officials said.