Cattle.jpg (Photo : Reuters)
Australia will be exporting one million live cattle to China every year, according to a deal signed by both countries.
Trade officials and representatives from the Cattle Council of Australia were in Beijing this past week to fine-tune the details of the deal, according to China.org.
The agreement is worth more than 1 billion Australian dollars, but changes might be made in the future, said a senior government minister on Friday.
"It's a million cattle, worth 1 billion Australian dollars. The ink is not dry on the contract though," said Australian Minister Christopher Pyne in an interview with Australia's flagship TV network Channel Nine.
"It's a great breakthrough. I mean this is the kind of thing that happens when you have a government that's focused on economic outcomes," the official said.
The deal, Pyne said, is an addition to the economic agreements Australia holds with East Asian countries.
"So we have a free trade agreement with Japan, free trade agreement with South Korea, working on one with China," Pyne said.
With the deal, China will be the top export market of Australia's live cattle industry. Presently, Indonesia holds that spot, buying 625,000 of the 1.13 million head exported by Australia between 2013 and 2014.
China is already a market for Australia's dairy and beef cattle, which the country uses for breeding purposes. China took more than 78,000 head of dairy cattle and about 15,000 beef cattle in the said period.
