Chinese Export Ban on Australian Beef
Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Steven Ciobo held a press conference on Thursday to discuss the stop put on Australian beef producers by Chinese authorities.
The Minister said “China’s concern is that they have raised with Australia some labelling inconsistencies, some of the labels on the outside of the boxes of beef, for example, are different to some of the labels according to the concerns they have raised with us some of the labels on the insides of the boxes.
These are largely technical issues; they are not health and safety related, so as a consequence we have seen these six facilities have had a stop put on them by Chinese authorities”.
He said “These facilities are responsible for a significant pro-portion of Australia’s beef exports to China.
As a consequence we could potentially see tens of millions and potentially more than $100 million worth of our meat export trade into China adversely affected”.
The Minister said the government had been very mobilised and very focused on trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and he’s had very constructive discussion with Chinese authorities to accept beef that is already on the water prior to the 24th of July and looks forward to addressing all of China’s concerns and “get this trade back on track as soon as possible”.
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