China and Australia have made progress in resuming Australian timber exports to China despite a series of obstacles to normalizing trade between the two countries, CNA reported.
It is understood that Australia is the eighth largest exporter of logs in the world and the second largest exporter of shaving wood products in the country. As one of Australia's pillar industries, Australia's timber contributed 0.5% of the country's total GDP in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, approximately US$9.2 billion. Australia exports about 1.6 billion Australian dollars (about 1.067 billion U.S. dollars), or 4 million tons of logs and pulpwood, to China every year. Exports to China account for about 90% of Australia's total timber exports.
However, at the end of 2020, the General Administration of Customs of China announced that due to the detection of quarantine pests in logs imported from many places in Australia, the import of logs from Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia in Australia will be suspended in accordance with relevant laws. log. After losing the Chinese market, the Australian timber industry is very bleak.
Victor Violante, head of the Australian Forest Products Association, said: "Chinese customs not long ago sent Australian agriculture sector officials a list of technical rules that must be met to resume timber imports."
He added that the timber industry was working with the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry on how to apply the new rules. The research phase should not last "more than a few months," Violante said.
Earlier, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao stated that China is willing to restart the economic and trade exchange mechanism with Australia, and Beijing also hopes that Canberra will provide Chinese companies with a fair, open and non-discriminatory business environment.