Business welcomes Anthony Albanese’s meeting with Xi Jinping

Australian business leaders have welcomed Tuesday night’s talks between Prime Minister Albanese and China’s President Xi Jinping, but were cautious about expecting any immediate outcomes.

Anthony Albanese meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali on Tuesday. Picture: Twitter

Australian business leaders have welcomed Tuesday night’s talks between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and China’s President Xi Jinping, but were cautious about expecting any immediate outcomes.

Fortescue Metals Group executive chairman Andrew Forrest, said the meeting between the two leaders was “very significant”.

“There has been a lot of hard work in the background,” he said.

He said Mr Albanese had not used China to “scurry up some marginal political votes” in the recent election and had “played a very straight hand with China”.

He said the meeting was “about repairing bridges and having a solid relationship with our major trading partner”.

“It has been a long journey, but the Business Council is pleased to see something positive happening,” head of the Business Council’s international committee, Warwick Smith, told the Australian from Bali.

“It has taken six years to get to some sensible dialogue, but hopefully things will now be moving in the right direction. We need to fix some of the trade problems. Trade is everything to our nation.”

“It’s pleasing to see the Xi-Albanese meeting,” Australian China Business Council president David Olsson said.

“We don’t expect to see any immediate announcements about trade, but it does increase confidence that there may be a way forward to resolve the trade issues.”

Mr Olsson, who is the international director of law firm King & Wood Mallesons, said the meeting “provided an opportunity for us to think more seriously about what a future relationship with China and the region might look like”.

“China is the major trading partner with virtually all the nations in our region.

“Australia and China are both members of RCEP which is the world’s largest trade agreement. This, along with a shared net zero climate goals, can provide a solid base from which to take forward our discussions.”

Two-way trade between Australia and China soared to more than $200bn before being hit by a series of tariffs and non tariff barriers against exports of Australian wine, barley, coal, lobsters and beef worth more than $20bn a year.

Australian Grape and Wine chief executive Lee McLean said the industry welcomed the news of the meeting.

“Dialogue is good, and while we would like to see a resumption in the wine trade as soon as possible, we are not attaching any expectation in terms of timing to this meeting,” he said. The industry was “watching closely” to see if there were any more specific outcomes from the meeting.

He said the closure of markets in China for Australian wine exporters, a trade once worth as much as $1.2bn a year, was “putting pressure on grape growers in a significant way in the form of an oversupply situation”. He said the industry was looking at opportunities to diversify, including Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia.

Treasury Wine Estate chief executive Tim Ford said the company “welcomed the news of Tuesday’s dialogue at the highest levels, and strongly supported the direction of strengthening economic and cultural ties between Australia and China”.

Grains industry lobby group GrainGrowers said China had grown significantly in importance over the past decade as a key market for Australian grains, particularly wheat. “Grain growers are always keen to supply markets that offer consistent free market access and any work to build long-term relationships with markets is critical,” a spokesman said.

While wheat exports have been strong, the barley industry’s exports to China, which reached a record 5.9 million tonnes in 2017 and 5.8 million tonnes in 2018, has effectively closed by tariffs of 80 per cent imposed in 2020.

“It is pleasing to see that the Australian and Chinese governments are engaging and undertaking dialogue,” the spokesman said.

“Any positive movement that helps to ultimately resolve the ­current sanctions on barley would certainly be welcomed by the ­Australian industry,” he said.