Australian producers sending food and edible agricultural products to China will now be required to sign a declaration to prove the items are free from COVID-19, following an outbreak at a Beijing market.
Since the cluster of COVID-19 infections nearly two weeks ago at the Xinfadi wholesale market, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) is now asking for a Letter of Guarantee that imported foods and products comply with China's food laws and regulations from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The request is not specific to Australia.
Products include meat, frozen vegetables, aquatic animals, and low-temperature transported industrial products.
Food safety 'higher than ever'
The Australian Government has advised GACC that Australia's food export system remains safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management David Littleproud said Australia's food safety standards were among the highest in the world.
"With the COVID-19 pandemic, our food production and distribution chains have stepped up and lifted their standards even higher," Mr Littleproud said.
Despite a Victorian worker contracting the virus at a Coles Distribution Centre in Laverton, Mr Littleproud remained confident around food safety.
"While it's regrettable that a Coles worker has contracted COVID-19, the main risk of transmission of COVID-19 is from close person-to-person contact, not from food or drink," he said.
Meat and Livestock analyst Simon Quilty said the Australian Government had advised producers not to sign China's Letter of Guarantee, but that a number of individual companies had done so.
"The US Center of Disease Control and WHO have both come out saying that frozen and fresh meat is not a transmitter of COVID-19," Mr Quilty said.
"Just to further push that point, Chinese authorities then conducted 100,000 tests last week across Beijing and the rest of China on imported meat — all found to be negative.
"Within their own country there's probably the issue of the outbreak in Beijing and the need to, I guess, save face and seen to be doing something."
Widespread testing
Citrus Australia general manager of market development David Daniels said, with the amount of testing required in China, an on-arrival paper-based result made sense.
"It's coming from the regional offices in China who are overwhelmed with testing. It would be a monumental task having to do it," Mr Daniels said.
"Clearance can be expedited. I don't think there's any harm in it."
He said a number of Australian citrus producers had already signed the documents.
"At the end of the day, they've got their sovereign right to protect their borders," Mr Daniels said.
"It doesn't concern us in any way because we've got great food safety practices."
He said in the highly unlikely event of a positive test result and transmission, Australia had rigorous traceability systems.
"We can trace fruit all the way back to the orchard — there would be ways and means to go back to the source," he said.
"We've got very low incidences in Australia added with the unlikelihood of someone in the supply chain being affected."
