Staphylococcus aureus is a pathogen of major concern in livestock products.This study was conducted to test imported and domestic meat sold by retail stores for the presence S. aureus.In addition, the antibiotic susceptibility of any S. aureus found was also evaluated.The overall isolation rate of S. aureus was 20.2% (13.9% in pork and 33.8% in beef) in retail meats.The percentage of imported meats found to contain S. aureus (33.3% in pork and 40.4% in beef) was higher than that of domestic meat (13.0% in pork and 14.7% in beef).In addition, the detection rate of S. aureus was higher in raw material meat than in ready to cook packaged meat.When the antibiotic susceptibility of S. aureus isolated from the meat products was evaluated, ampicillin was found to be the highest (76.5%), followed by penicillin (75.3%), tetracycline (27.1%) and erythromycin (21.2%).Penicillin and tetracycline resistant were detected in 55.6% and 13.3% of the beef isolates, resp., and 97.5% and 42.5% of the pork isolates, resp.The tetracycline and erythromycin resistant plasmids of the isolated strain were transferred into S. aureus DPRMM2429 by the filter mating method and the frequencies of transfer was found to be 1.1 × 10-5-1.9 × 10-9 and 1.2 × 10-5-4.0 × 10-8 resp.