A move by China to approve more Australian citrus, stone fruit, mangoes, and cherries to be sold into the Chinese market could be worth millions of dollars to those industries.
Chinese authorities have updated a list of approved Australian producers allowed to sell to their market.
For the citrus industry alone, almost 500 more orchard blocks have been added to the list.
“We’ve had lists waiting to be approved for a number of years and this is a positive sign that they have approved them,” said Nathan Hancock, CEO of Citrus Australia.
“The Chinese market is a significant market for Australia… China has been a strong market for us prior to the pandemic and we’re looking forward to any opportunity to keep that going,” he said.
For Australian citrus to be exported to China, growers need to be registered by the Australian Government, and be on the Chinese list.
It’s the first time the lists have been updated since 2020 for stone fruit, mangoes and cherries, and the first time since 2021 for citrus.
“I think combined with other horticultural crops that have been approved there is potential for quite some millions of dollars in trade to to occur,” Mr Hancock said.
“We think that this is a great sign that Beijing and Canberra are talking and that things are moving in the right trajectory.”
The move follows the first meeting in more than two years between representatives from the Australian department of agriculture and the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China.
Nationals leader David Littleproud welcomed the move and said the next test will be for Australian wine.
“The big test still is wine. There’s $1.2 billion that was stripped out of the wine industry with no other real market to send it to, that was lost overnight.”
Liv Casben
(Australian Associated Press)
