Agency :
Three years after steep Chinese tariffs halted imports of Australian barley as tensions between the two countries ratcheted higher, the grain is once again flowing freely.
Barley is not only used to brew beer but to feed pigs, and China was Australia’s leading market, taking 50 percent of its barley exports.
China has imported 314,000 tonnes of Australian barley worth 139 million Australian dollars (around $94 million) since the government scrapped its 80.5 percent tariffs in August, the Australian government said in early December, citing official Chinese data.
The resumption of trade is a welcome relief for Australian farmers, who saw a nearly one billion Australian-dollar market evaporate in 2020.
“In the two months following the market’s re-opening, Marketing and Trading shipped two vessels of barley to China,” said the CBH Group, a cooperative of over 3,500 Western Australian grain farmers, in its annual report.
Tensions between the countries began to mount in 2018 when Australia excluded the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from its 5G network.
Then in 2020, Australia called for an international investigation into the origins of Covid-19 — an action China saw as politically motivated since it emanated from a close partner of the United States.
In response, Beijing slapped high tariffs on key Australian exports, including barley, beef and wine, while halting its coal imports.
