IT IS unclear how much the Chinese-Australian free trade agreement will benefit Cloncurry’s live export industry until the document is released.
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The agreement will remove tariffs of 12 to 25 per cent on beef across nine years.
It could be the best opportunity Australian cattle producers have had to break into the Chinese market.
Cloncurry Shire’s acting mayor Bob McDonald – who is part of the McDonald family which owns one of Australia’s largest cattle operations – said the free trade agreement “looks as though it would be a plus” for the region.
The McDonald family owns MDH Pty Ltd, which according to 2012 figures had 170,000 head of cattle on 11 stations covering about 3.8 million hectares.
Following the views of economic experts through media has not clarified to Cr McDonald how much of a win it will be for producers.
However, it did seem positive for those trying to get into the Chinese market.
“In the last 40 years people have tried to get into the Chinese market, it never really happened,” Cr McDonald said.
“For the first time it looks really positive.”
Positive news is no doubt something landowners are eager to hear, considering the “tough old game” of cattle producing has been complicated by drought and increasing overheads.
Rising costs of fuel and transport as well as reduction of weight of cattle while being shipped was the reason MDH abandoned live export of their cattle.
“We used to some years ago, but have gone another direction. We didn’t get a lot of money ... we thought we could do better,” he said.
Instead of freighting cattle to Darwin, the cattle is slaughtered and packaged in Brisbane.
The bulk of the meat is exported to Japan and Korea.
The price per head of cattle has also increased in the last three months because producers were no longer getting rid of cattle to alleviate the burden drought had on their properties.
“The situation has eased up now,” Cr McDonald said.
The announcement of Chinese free trade has had nothing to do with the cattle boom passing through the Cloncurry saleyards.
About 214,000 head of cattle has passed through the council-owned saleyards from January to October this year.
Last year 224,000 cattle went through the saleyards.
