China Agrees To Lift Ban On Australian Rock Lobster Before Chinese New Year

Chinese Premier Li Qiang agreed that China would lift its ban on Australian rock lobsters by the end of the year, just in time for Chinese New Year in early 2025, ending one of the last trade restrictions that were imposed in 2020-2021, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Thursday.

"Premier Li and I have agreed on a timetable to resume full lobster trade by the end of this year," Albanese told reporters in Vientiane after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Laos Thursday.

"This will be welcomed by the people engaged in the live lobster industry in places like Geraldton and South Australia and Tasmania and so many parts of, particularly, regional Australia, where this is just one of the elements that produce jobs for Australians, and that is what our priority has been," he added.

The Australian economy will benefit as the trade tensions between the two countries ease, with the value of export barriers, including those on barley, coal, and wine, exceeding AU$20 billion.

China imposed trade bans on several Australian exports, in 2020, after then Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an inquiry into the origin of the Covid virus in Wuhan. China had cited biosecurity concerns as reason for the ban.

In 2019, China was the destination for AU$700 million worth of rock lobsters, making up 98% of Australia's exports, and with the ban in place, Australia struggled to find both domestic and international markets for Southern Rock Lobster, ABC reported.

Welcoming the decision, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said that exporting lobsters to their largest market was great news for the state.

According to the federal government, the resumption of lobster trade will save nearly 3000 jobs, including 2000 in Western Australia.

"Chinese New Year was always a fantastic time for us ... in the past when the stars align we have really big catches and really high prices, so that could be unbelievably good news for a lot of fishers, that's for sure," Lobster fisher Clint Moss from Lancelin, north of Perth, told ABC News.

Following the ban, the beach prices dropped from AU$73 to AU$15 per kilo for lobster, and some 50 boats had left the WA fishing fleet, Moss said.

"It's been terribly difficult, the last four years, I can tell you," Andrew Ferguson, a lobster retailer and exporter, said. "While I'm excited and very pleased to hear this, for the industry's sake, we certainly can't lose sight of what happened over the last four years, and be prepared."

However, Ferguson warned the fishing industry will have to work a lot more to regain its market share and China may not be lucrative as before.