A record 1.13 million head were exported in the 12 months to June 2014, just shy of an 80 per cent increase on the previous fiscal year. Much of the increased volume went into the resurgent trade with Indonesia, but with strong signs of growth coming from other less acknowledged countries.

Year-on-year, shipments of live cattle to Vietnam leapt 726 per cent, thanks to a beef vacuum being created by China.

Commenting during a trade visit to Hanoi last week, Australian Live Exporters Council chief executive Alison Penfold said the surging Vietnam market was a symptom of China’s appetite for beef, which is “sucking up domestic herds” from South-East Asia.

Expectations are that the Vietnam trade may steady at current levels of around 20,000 head a month, Ms Penfold said, but there is also strong growth in Malaysia, where shipments jumped 44 per cent to 55,438 head in the last financial year.

China, the eye of this beef storm, is still not accepting slaughter cattle from Australia, but the live trade in breeding cattle is progressing briskly. The 94,000 head of breeders shipped to China in 2013-14 represents a 59 per cent jump on the previous fiscal year.

Ms Penfold said work is underway to negotiate the health import protocols that will open up this powerhouse market to slaughter cattle, but this remains a work in progress.

Israel, a country a third of the size of Tasmania, shipped in 108,053 live cattle during the 2013-14 fiscal year, a 61 per cent increase in an already important, if little-recognised, live export destination.

Despite the ban on boxed beef laid down by the Russian Federation in April (over claimed detection of hormone growth promotants) and again in July (in retaliation for Australia’s stance on the downing of Malaysian airliner MH17 over Ukraine), Russia’s doors have so far stayed open to live cattle.

The federation’s policy of building up its breeding herd has been lucrative for the Australian seedstock sector, which shipped more than 50,000 head to Russia in the last fiscal year, a 38 per cent increase on the previous year.

But the central fact of Australia’s live export figures is Indonesia, and Australia’s neighbour has come back from the live export standoff hungry for Australian beef.

In 2013-14 numbers shipped to Indonesia jumped 130 per cent, to 624,729, the highest number it has taken since 2009-10.