More Australian Fruit Added to China’s Import List, With Citrus Industry Welcoming the Change

A fruit and vegetable shop storekeeper changing the price of her bananas in Sydney, Australia. Ian Waldie/Getty Images

More Australian fruit is expected to enter the Chinese market after Beijing updated the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) lists for the first time since 2020, allowing more stone fruit, mangoes, cherries and citrus to reach Chinese consumers.

This comes after representatives from Australia’s Department of Agriculture and China’s General Administration of Customs held talks, the first held between the two sides in more than two years.

Nathan Hancock, CEO of Citrus Australia, welcomed the change, saying that adding more fruit approvals, such as mangoes and cherries, could add millions of dollars to trade between Australia and China.

“We think that this is a great sign that Beijing and Canberra are talking and that things are moving in the right trajectory,” he said. “We’ve had lists waiting to be approved for a number of years, and this is a positive sign that they have approved them.”

The newly updated GACC now includes 500 orchards in the Australian citrus industry, which is a boon for Australian citrus growers who had to first register with the Australian government before being added to the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC).

More Australian fruit are expected to enter the Chinese market soon. Maria Uspenskaya/Shutterstock

“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.”

Australia Still Concerned Over Barriers to Australian Wine

Nationals leader David Littleproud welcomed the move but said the test was still there 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,” he said.

In 2020, a number of Australian goods were subject to arbitrary trade sanctions by Beijing in response to then Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 and the banning of China-based companies Huawei and ZTE from involvement in Australia’s 5G infrastructure due to security concerns.

However, following a change in government which saw the centre-left  Labor party get into government, the bilateral relations between the two countries have begun to thaw.

A customer selects a bottle of Australian wine at a supermarket on June 17, 2015 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

China Greenlights Timber Exports

The green light for Australian fruit comes after Beijing confirmed it will resume the importation of Australian timber.

In a rare media appearance, Beijing’s ambassador to Canberra, Xiao Qian, told reporters that the CCP’s decision was based on a “serious study” provided to Beijing by Australia on the quarantine risks of Australian timber that had “satisfied the conditions of the Chinese Customs.”

It follows Trade Minister Don Farrell’s two-day trip to Beijing in May and Canberra’s agreement to suspend an appeal to the World Trade Organisation over Beijing’s tariffs on Australian barley.

Xiao said other trade disputes—such as those applied to barley, wine, lobster, coal, and cattle—will be dealt with “one by one.” He expressed hope that the disputes can be resolved “as soon as possible.”

Rebecca Zhu contributed to this report.