Sydney, Australia, Dec 17 (EFE).- Australia said Sunday that it was “very confident” that China would lift the restrictions it imposed three years ago on Australian wine imports in 2024, after doing the same with other products, further normalizing relations between both countries.
Australian wines sit on a shelf at a supermarket in Shanghai, China, 27 November 2020. EFE-EPA FILE/ALEX PLAVEVSKI
“I would be very confident that early in the new year we will get a favorable result from the Chinese authorities to lift the ban on Australian wine,” Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell told Sky News on Sunday.
Farrell also expressed confidence that tariffs on Australian lobster would be removed “sometime in the near future,” and said it was not “a unreasonable prediction” to expect all remaining tariffs on Australian exports by China to be lifted next year.
China, Australia’s biggest trading partner, increased tariffs on Australian products, including wine, coal, barley, timber and meat, among others, in 2020, after former Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government called for an international probe into the origin of Covid-19.
Bilateral relations between Australia and China began to strain in 2017 over Australian laws against foreign interference and Canberra’s exclusion of Chinese companies from 5G services in 2018, among other reasons.
However, trade and political ties between Australia and China have taken a turn for the better after the coming to power in May 2022 of Labor’s Anthony Albanese.
Beijing has been lifting trade restrictions against Australia, the latest being a suspension of imports of meat products from three large slaughterhouses in the Oceania country.
Between January and August, Australia exported products worth AUD 6 billion ($4.02 billion) to China that had been subject to blockades by the Asian country, according to official data.
In October, the Chinese commerce ministry announced that China and Australia had reached a consensus to resolve their trade disputes under the framework of the World Trade Organization. EFE
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