By Joe Cash
BEIJING (Reuters) -Australia’s Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell said on Friday he was “pleased” with his talks with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing on removing trade barriers, but added that his visit was “just another step” in stabilising ties.
Farrell’s visit to the Chinese capital, the first by an Australian trade minister since 2019, followed an easing of diplomatic tensions with the election of a new Labor government in mid-2022.
Australian wine, beef, barley, coal, seafood and timber exports to China were hit by trade curbs in 2020, and Australian journalist Cheng Lei was detained in Beijing on national security charges, after Australia called for an international inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, which angered Beijing.
“(This visit) is just another step in the road of stabilising the relationship,” Farrell said at a press conference after the talks.
“I came here to create a pathway to normalise our trade and economic relationship with China.”
As tensions eased, Beijing in January gave permission to four government-backed firms to ship in Australian coal and trade has now fully resumed.
Australia also agreed in April to suspend a case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over China’s anti-dumping duties on barley, while China said it would hasten a review into the tariffs.
But Canberra is still pushing to have other trade curbs removed and for diplomatic relations to stabilise.
Earlier on Friday, in his opening remarks at the 16th Joint Ministerial Economic Commission, Farrell told China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao: “We can see the benefits for Australian and Chinese businesses and consumers that continue to flow from the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement” of 2015.
“I’m very pleased to confirm that we agreed to step up dialogue under our free trade agreement and other platforms to resolve our outstanding issues,” Farrell said after his meeting with Wang.
“We also discussed the World Trade Organization disputes. I was very pleased to get reassurances that our agreement reached recently on barley remains on track.”
Farrell said he had invited Wang to visit Australia, an offer that he said Wang had accepted.
“There were very positive discussions, as I said, a whole lot of movement has started already. We’ve seen coal come back to China, we’ve seen copper concentrates come back to China, we’ve seen cotton come back into China.”
Farrell also said he raised the consular cases of Cheng Lei as well as detained Australian blogger Yang Hengjun with Wang.
The Australian minister said China also expressed a desire to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – a free trade agreement among some countries on the Pacific Rim.
“The Chinese Minister indicated that they would like to be considered for accession to the CPTPP,” Farrell said.
Entry into CPTPP requires the approval of all member countries, including Australia.
(Reporting by Joe Cash and Dominique Patton; editing by John Stonestreet and Alex Richardson)
