BARLEY EXPORTS —
CHINESE TARIFFS
387. Hon PETER COLLIER to
the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
My question without notice is asked
on behalf of Hon Jim Chown, who is on urgent parliamentary business.
I refer to the Chinese government's
proposed imposition of tariffs on Australian barley imports.
(1) What is the
likely time line regarding the final decision for the Chinese Ministry of
Commerce on this tariff proposal?
(2) If tariffs
are introduced, how much are they likely to be per tonne?
(3) What
discussions has the minister conducted with federal and Chinese counterparts in
an attempt to defray tariffs being imposed on Western Australian and Australian
barley?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the
question.
(1) On 8 May
2020, China's Minister of Commerce provided the Australian government
with two statements of essential facts
setting out preliminary findings for its anti-dumping and countervailing duty
investigations. The federal government has been given until 18 May 2020
to comment on these documents. The final reports on these investigations are
due on 19 May 2020 for the anti-dumping case and on 21 June 2020 for the countervailing
duty case.
(2) The
preliminary findings indicated a 73.6 per cent dumping margin and a 6.9 per
cent countervailing duty margin.
(3) Since this claim first emerged 18 months ago, we
have raised the issue with Chinese officials and with the Australian government
on multiple occasions, including on a trade visit to China in March 2019. We
had some optimism some weeks ago that there would be a positive outcome, but
obviously by Friday last week that had changed. On Sunday night, I spoke again
with the Chinese Consul General in WA about the issue and expressed our
government's concern. I have discussed the matter with Minister
Birmingham today.