Australia says taking China to WTO over wine tariffs enables negotiations
Australia's complaint to the World Trade Organisation over China's anti-dumping duties on wine exports should enable bilateral negotiations, Foreign Minister Marise Payne said on Sunday (Jun 20).
The government filed a complaint on Saturday over duties which were applied last year and nearly destroyed exports of Australian wine to the Chinese market.
"What lodging the dispute allows us to do is get started dispute consultation settlements, that actually is a bilateral discussion with China about the problems," Payne said in an interview on the Australian Broadcasting Corp's Insiders programme.
"We've seen duties of over 200 % put on Australian wine. We don't assume that that is constant with China's obligations beneath the WTO. So that area of the process permits us to have that direct conversation."
The Australian government has complained frequently that China has ignored calls to help ease trade tensions.
It's the second time in half a year Australia has appealed to the WTO. In December, Canberra launched a formal appeal seeking an assessment of China's decision to impose hefty tariffs on imports of Australian barley.
Relations with China, already rocky after Australia banned Huawei from its nascent 5G broadband networking in 2018, have worsened since Canberra needed an international inquiry in to the origins of the coronavirus, first reported in central China this past year.
China, Australia's major trading partner, responded by imposing tariffs on Australian commodities, including wine and barley and limited imports of Australian beef, coal and grapes, moves described by america as "economic coercion".
Asked about the fresh international push to find answers to the origin of the virus that triggers COVID-19, Payne said it was important to maintain the momentum.
"We are very determined to utilize our partners to make sure that (...) investigation has the ability to access its material that it requires, including within China," Payne said.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
