A free trade agreement has been signed between China and Australia in a deal that is Australia’s biggest-ever and that has taken a decade to finalise.
Western Australian Fishing Industry Council (WAFIC) chief executive officer John Harrison welcomed the historic agreement and said the agreement's (ChAFTA) design to reduce tariffs to 0% for rock lobster and abalone in the coming four years would provide these fisheries with greater certainty.
“WA’s Western Rock Lobster Fishery is Australia’s single most valuable wild-catch fishery,” Mr Harrison said. “At various times it has been worth up to $400 million annually and almost all of this product currently goes into China.
“The market certainty that the FTA will bring is significant. It will affect how WA’s fishers run their operations, how many people they employ, how they will invest in future research and development and how they work with government to manage the resource.”
Mr Harrison said the impact of the ChAFTA on the rock lobster industry would be similarly reflected in WA’s abalone sector.
“Reducing tariffs will enable Australia’s seafood industries to better compete with countries such as NZ which already has full access to China.”
He also expects the ChAFTA to provide future opportunity for WA’s pearling sector.
“There is a rapidly developing middle-class in China that has a growing disposable income that is available for luxury items such as pearls,” he said. “I would imagine WA’s pearling industry would be studying the opportunities very closely.”
Mr Harrison said although WA had a relatively small aquaculture industry at this stage, the State Government had indicated its support for aquaculture development and there was great potential for future expansion.
