Australian lobster fishers are confident they can ramp up supply in time for Lunar New Year once trade restrictions with China are finally lifted.
China will resume importing Australian live lobsters by the end of 2024 after a years-long trade dispute between the two nations, in a win for local producers locked out of their largest export market.
The vast majority of Australian rock lobster exports, worth more than $700 million, went to China in 2019.
South Australian lobster fisher Kyriakos Toumazos described Thursday’s announcement, brokered on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit on Thursday, as a “massive positive”.
Realistically, Toumazos said re-engaging with the Chinese market would be a gradual process but he was “very comfortable” working with the timeline and process outlined by the federal government.
He assured domestic consumers, who supported the industry throughout the four-year export ban, would still be able to source lobster for their Christmas tables.
“As an industry, we’re going to ensure that they have a valuable product at an affordable level,” he told AAP.
Earlier this year, Toumazos spoke to Neos Kosmos about the need to diversify markets beyond China because of the ban.
It led to the “most difficult three years” in the industry’s history.
“Because I have been in and out of China for probably three decades, I understood very clearly the impact that losing that market would have had on the industry. It all comes down to the geopolitical situation in the South China Sea,” he told Neos Kosmos in February.
Now Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Chinese Premier Li Qiang agreed the embargo would be lifted by the end of 2024.
The federal government said it would save the jobs of 3000 workers in the commercial fishing industry.
China first imposed the trade sanctions in 2020 in retaliation to then-prime minister Scott Morrison calling for an inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tariffs on Australian products such as barley and coal were also enforced but experts say restrictions hit the lobster industry hard as diversifying into other markets is more difficult.
Volumes demanded by Japan and Singapore failed to match the scale of China, with the Chinese market also prepared to pay more per kilo.
As a result, lobster harvesters have not been catching as much as they could, making it difficult to keep businesses afloat and workers employed.
Despite the pressures of the past few years – compounded by high fuel prices and other costs of doing business, there is confidence the industry would be able to ramp up to meet demand as it started to coming through from Chinese buyers.
With AAP
