Australia, China 'some way to go' on trade relations - Australian minister

BEIJING (Reuters) - Australia's minister for trade and tourism, Don Farrell, told China's commerce minister, Wang Wentao, that "we still have some way to go to establish usual trade across the board", at a meeting in Beijing on Friday.

In his opening remarks at the 16th Joint Ministerial Economic Commission, Farrell also told Wang: "We can see the benefits for Australian and Chinese businesses and consumers that continue to flow from the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement" of 2015.

China imposed trade curbs on Australian wine, beef, barley, coal, cotton, seafood, and timber exports in 2020, and Canberra is still pushing to have some of those removed and for diplomatic relations to stabilise.

In January, Beijing gave permission to four government-backed firms to ship in Australian coal and trade has now fully resumed.

Australia also agreed in April to suspend a case at the World Trade Organization (WTO) over China's anti-dumping duties on barley, while China said it would hasten a review into the tariffs.

Farrell told Wang at the meeting that "Australia would always prefer dialogue than disputation" over the ongoing case at the WTO and that he "can already see the benefits of dialogue in the agreements we've reached and a pathway to the resolution".

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said in April that the government expected a similar result in a second dispute on wine tariffs, a message repeated by Farrell.

(Reporting by Joe Cash and Dominique Patton; editing by John Stonestreet and Alex Richardson)