July 3, 2012

 

Australia cattle industry anticipates Indonesian President's visit to fix bilateral live-export trade

 

 

The northern Australia cattle industry hopes for a visit by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to Darwin, Australia on Monday (July 2) to repair the ailing bilateral live export trade trade.

 

A year since the Australian Government's suspension of the cattle trade, import permits have been halved by Indonesia and are expected to continue to decline.

 

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig will meet with their counterparts Monday (July 2) and Tuesday (July 3) to discuss trade links between the two countries.

 

Luke Bowen, from the NT Cattlemen's Association, says he hopes the meetings will focus on the importance of South-East Asia to Australia's future.

 

"Clearly there's a lot of repair work and a lot of relationship building that needs to take place with Indonesia if we are going to see our relationship continue to grow, and it goes well beyond cattle."

 

Gillard has defended her government's decision to temporarily ban live cattle exports to Indonesia last year.

 

"In order to ensure that the people of Australia were going to support this industry, we needed to sort out how we were going to deal with animal welfare and we have," she said.

 

"So that's important for the long term future of the industry, of which I am a supporter."

 

A meeting between Australian cattle industry representatives and the Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has been cancelled.

 

In figures released Monday (July 2) by the NT Department of Resources, 28,505 head of cattle were shipped to Indonesia through the Port of Darwin in the month of June.

 

For 2012, total live export numbers from Darwin to the end of June reached 135,721 which are up by 12,438 to the same time last year.