SYDNEY (Reuters) – China has lifted its import bans on five major Australian beef producers, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said on Thursday, in the latest sign of improving relations between the countries.
The trade bans have been removed by Beijing with immediate effect, Watt told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“The work that we’ve done to stabilise our relationship with China is paying real dividends for our farmers and our processors,” Watt said.
Australia and China, its largest trading partner, are rebuilding ties after a period of strained relations which hit a low in 2020 after Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origin of COVID-19.
Australia is one of China’s top suppliers of beef but volumes have plunged after diplomatic relations soured, even as Beijing bought larger quantities of beef overall. China suspended some Australian beef factories from its market in 2020, citing labelling irregularities and other technical issues.
“We had already seen a couple of other processing operations have their trade bans lifted, but now (it is) another five,” Watt said.
Beijing had also imposed tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Australian commodity imports, most of which have been lifted since a change of government in Canberra two years ago.
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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