Australia suspends WTO case against China on barley tariffs
CANBERRA, Australia –
Australia suspended a criticism to the World Trade Organization in a bid to reopen the Chinese market to Australian barley for the primary time in three years within the new authorities’s newest step towards repairing relations with Beijing.
China successfully closed it doorways to Australian barley in May 2020 by imposing an 80% tariff after the earlier Australian authorities angered Beijing by calling for an impartial inquiry into the origins of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The earlier conservative authorities responded by difficult the tariff within the Geneva-based commerce physique.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong stated her center-left Labor Party authorities, which was elected in May, had reached an settlement with China that “creates a pathway for the resolution of the dispute over Australian barley.”
China had agreed to overview its duties on the grain over three or 4 months, she stated, and Australia will briefly droop the WTO dispute throughout that overview interval.
“Obviously, if the duty is not lifted at the end of the review period, we’ll resume our dispute in the WTO,” Wong stated. She stated the Chinese overview supplied a “significantly shorter time frame” to resolve the dispute than the WTO supplied.
The Chinese Embassy in Australia didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
The Australian authorities revealed the settlement a day after China’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu will go to Australia and Fiji this week.
Ma plans to carry a brand new spherical of political consultations with Australian officers, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated Monday throughout a daily media briefing.
Official and unofficial commerce limitations are costing Australian exporters an estimated $14 billion a yr in merchandise together with beef, seafood and wooden. Trade Minister Don Farrell stated Australia hoped the overview would develop into a template for resolving different commerce disputes with China, notably over wine. While barley growers have discovered different markets, Australian wine producers have struggled to seek out various patrons after China imposed commerce limitations in late 2020.
Australia has denied China’s claims that it was subsidizing wine to export it at artificially low costs.
Grain Producers Australia, which represents barley exporters, welcomed the brand new settlement.
“This process to reach a resolution would be significantly shorter than if the WTO process continued,” Grain Producers Australian chair Barry Large stated in a press release.
“We welcome the Labor government’s constructive dialogue and positive progress towards stabilizing the relationship with China, and creating this process and opportunity to recommence the barley trade,” Large stated.
In February, Australian and Chinese commerce ministers held their first bilateral assembly since 2019, displaying indicators of improved relations for the reason that earlier authorities was voted out after 9 years in energy.
During the net trade, Farrell accepted his Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao’s invitation to go to China. A date has but to be set.
In December, Wong grew to become the primary Australian international minister to go to China in 4 years. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese raised his considerations about commerce in November when he took half within the first formal bilateral assembly with Chinese President Xi Jinping by an Australian authorities chief since 2016.
China lately lifted commerce restrictions on Australian coal that have been first imposed in late 2020.
