CBH and Emerald Grain have green light for China barley re-entry

Two of Australia’s largest grain marketers have been re-registered to trade back into China following the lifting of Beijing’s Aussie barley ban.

Two of the nation’s biggest grain exporters can once again send barley into the Chinese market after Beijing lifted a ban on their registration on Wednesday, in further signs of thawing tensions between the two countries.

In a statement, the federal government welcomed the announcement that CBH Grain and Emerald Grain Australia can immediately join 126 other local exporters registered to take export barley to China.

It comes after China announced last week it would scrap the crippling 80.5 per cent tax it placed on Australian barley in May 2020, in a sign of easing tensions between Canberra and Beijing.

The ban had cost the grains industry about $1 billion a year.

Picture: Anatolii Stepanov

The government said the reinstatement followed “technical discussions” and an indication of “the stabilisation of our relationship with China”.

“Prior to the imposition of duties, China was Australia’s most valuable export market for barley, worth about $916 million in 2018-19,” the statement said.

“Since the imposition of tariffs in 2020, trade in barley with China effectively ceased.

“We will continue to press for remaining trade impediments affecting Australian exports to be removed, which is in the interests of both Australia and China.”

The companies were not included on Chinese customs lists released on Saturday, August 5, the day after the barley ban was lifted.

The CBH Group is Western Australia’s biggest grain exporter, while Emerald Grain predominantly trades from the eastern states.

CBH was slapped with a ban in September 2020 after claims Chinese customs found pests in a shipment of barley. Emerald was banned two months later in claims surrounding weed seed limits.

The federal government now hopes to use the barley blueprint to have the 220 per cent wine tariffs removed, which brought the $1.2 billion trade to a halt in late 2020.