China Trade Mission

The Hon. J.M. RANKINE (Wright) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Minister, what is the government doing to assist South Australian premium food and wine producers to access and develop new markets in China?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:50): I thank the member for Wright for the question. It is tremendously important when we are dealing with China that not only are our wonderful private sector companies over there doing business, but the government is standing side by side with them and showing real leadership. We just took this delegation of 300 people across to China, mainly in Shandong province, a wonderful part of the world which we are celebrating this year a 30-year sister-state relationship with.

We had 52 people from the wine sector there, representing 25 different companies. I must say, the feedback we received from them was that they were overjoyed to be part of this big delegation, and they said that the doors that were opened for them were something that was way beyond their expectations, because they had gone there as part of a delegation with a state that is taken very seriously by the Shandong provincial government.

These leaders from Shandong are saying, 'We have never had a delegation from anywhere in the world this big.' We are talking about a province with a population of 100 million people, with an economy the size of Indonesia. It is the third biggest provincial economy in China, so these are serious players. They do have sister-state relationships with states within France, the United States and other parts of the world, but they take this South Australian one very seriously. I want to pay credit to the Premier, because it is something that he really ramped up a few years ago. I think it is safe to say that it was dormant for a few years, and it was the Premier who breathed new life into an agreement that was first inked by premier John Bannon 30 years ago.

With the delegation we had in the agriculture sector, of course, the wine people we had there are all about trying to get new deals. I witnessed one MOU that was signed between Frank Nardone, the managing director of Nardone Baker Wines. He was one of the first wineries on the mission to sign an agreement with a Shandong-based company, which secured the import and distribution of their wines into Shandong and a further six provinces throughout China within 12 months. This deal should see 300,000 bottles of South Australian wine exported to China during the next three years, which is fantastic news for our wine industry. It is building on Nardone Baker Wines' previous success in participating in last year's government-led delegation to China, which resulted in opening up an e-commerce shop in China.

Another example of the success of the trade missions is Chris Day, who on Saturday sent his first container of Vineyard Road wines from Langhorne Creek to China. That is 1,150 cases or 13,824 bottles. Mr Day joined the Premier's China mission last year and expects to see more shipments following this recent mission, telling me he had one of the most valuable meetings he has ever had in Shandong on this trip. In addition to the wine companies represented on the delegation, which included Chapel Hill, Nova Vita, Braydun Hill, Geoff Hardy and Virgara Wines, there were 20 individuals representing 14 South Australian food companies.

One of the ways we can help as a government is in working with the industry on things like packaging. We are here to work with them on biosecurity to make sure that we can help convey the message of our fantastic food safety record in South Australia, something that is enormously popular within China, and we also need to give our food industry a hand when it comes to packaging. We have the premium produce here in South Australia; we need to make sure it is in the sort of packaging that is going to stand out on the shelves of the supermarket. We are probably not doing it as well as other countries at the moment, but it is something we will continue to work on with the industry so that we can all prosper and create more jobs.