Australia likely to drag China to WTO over barley dispute

AUSTRALIA could take China to the World Trade Organization as the next step in a trade dispute over barley, Canberra’s Trade Minister said Sunday.

Trade tensions between the two economies have escalated in recent months, with Beijing slapping a string of trade tariffs and customs delays on several Australian exports, including wine, barley and beef.

Canberra has already made efforts to appeal Beijing’s decisions on Australian barley using a domestic Chinese process, but it was rejected by Chinese authorities, Simon Birmingham said in remarks to ABC’s Insiders programme.

“So now the WTO appeal for barley is the next step,” Birmingham said, adding that the Australian government was discussing the move with the grains industry.

Australia already outlined concerns over the accumulation of adverse trade decisions by China to the WTO’s trading goods committee in the last week, he added.

But the dispute over wine exports still has to go through the domestic appeals process, he said.

China announced plans to impose anti-dumping deposits on Australian wine earlier this week, saying Beijing’s domestic wine market has suffered “substantial damage” due to the dumping of imported Australian wines.

Relations between the two countries have deteriorated over the past two years, after Canberra banned Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei from setting up a 5G network in Australia.

Beijing is also angry that the Australian government demanded an independent investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus, which spread from the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan worldwide.