The Minister for Trade, Mark Vaile, today welcomed the announcement by the Chinese authorities of the wool import quota allocation for the second half of 2001.

The Chinese State Development Planning Commission has announced release of the second quota allocation of 160,000 tonnes, making the total for the year 320,000 tonnes.

Mr Vaile said the 5 per cent increase in the level of quota allocation over 2000 was good news for Australian woolgrowers. A very positive development is that there is no split in the allocation between wool destined for the Chinese domestic market and for re-export.

"The timely release of wool quota and the increasing size of the quota quantities reflect the considerable efforts that the Government has put into the bilateral WTO accession negotiations with China over the last few years.  Improved access for wool into China has been an essential element of these negotiations and the results are paying good dividends to the Australian wool industry", Mr Vaile said. 

"I am confident that in the final wrap up of the WTO accession later this year there will be further good news for Australia's wool industry, including commitments by China to move towards an early single annual quota allocation and to remove the split between quota for the domestic and re-export markets", Mr Vaile said.

China is Australia's largest wool customer.  Total wool exports reached the historically high level of A$1,102 million in year 2000, accounting for 34 per cent of Australia's wool exports. Strong wool exports to China continued in the first 5 months of 2001. Wool exports to China were A$467 million for the first 5 months of 2001 reflecting a 25 per cent increase compared with the same period of 2000.

Contact:
James Baker 0418 273475
Andrew Ethell 0417 667414