Phnom Penh: The Australian government is set to explore options for World Trade Organization (WTO) arbitration of its trade dispute with China, in light of rumors of a possible meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Xi Jinping.

Australia's trade minister Don Farrell said in a speech in Melbourne on Monday that Australia would rather discuss an "off-ramp" with the Chinese government than press for a WTO decision on the ongoing trade dispute between Canberra and Beijing. was open to

The trade minister insisted Australian businesses wanted to "mitigate risk exposure" by moving away from the Chinese market regardless of what happened at the WTO.

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In his speech, Farrell said that "as we found, over-reliance on any single trading partner comes with significant risks."

Because of this, a key tenet of the government's trade policy strategy is trade diversification. There is a trade war going on between Australia and China since 2020. China imposed trade restrictions on a number of Australian exports, including meat, coal, barley and wine, in the wake of a speech by the country's then-prime minister Scott Morrison, who called for a global inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus. April that year.

Most of the sanctions are still in place more than two years later, and the Australian government has escalated its concerns to the World Trade Organisation.

Canberra asked a WTO panel to look into China's punitive measures against Australian barley and wine exports in 2021.
According to Albanese, full trade relations must be restored before relations can improve significantly.

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The Australian leader promised to bring up trade issues at the upcoming G20 summit in Bali, and the Australian government has suggested Albany and Xi could meet there.

On the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting in Cambodia over the weekend, Albanese had a brief meeting with outgoing Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, which he described as "constructive".

An Australian leader and a senior Chinese official finally spoke face-to-face for the first time since 2019. If the two leaders hold their first bilateral meeting this month, Albanese said on Friday he would ask Xi to remove trade barriers worth billions of dollars.

A meeting with Xi, according to Albanese, "is not off the table at this point in time." But he said the first step towards normalizing ties was the lifting of economic sanctions on China.

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"They are not in Australia's interest, nor are they in the interest of the meat industry, the wine industry, or any other industry that is subject to sanctions. However, it is also against China's interests," Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. .