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Indonesia
will import 180,000 live cattle from Australia for the third quarter, marking
the restart of imports after a ban on the Aus$320 million trade was lifted this
week, chief economics minister Hatta Rajasa said on Friday.
Australia’s
government removed the month-long ban on live cattle exports to neighboring
Indonesia on Wednesday, saying it was satisfied the trade could resume after a
scandal over mistreatment of livestock.
Rajasa met
with Australia’s foreign minister Kevin Rudd in Jakarta on Friday to agree the
details of resumption of trade, which comes just as Indonesia’s demand is
expected to pick up during the fasting month of Ramadan in August.
Rudd said
both sides had agreed on cattle welfare, but he did not specify what
improvements to standards Indonesia had made or had promised to make, after a
joint team of experts toured abattoirs in the archipelago last month.
“Australia
and Indonesia welcome any arrangements that industry reaches to give the sector
higher standards, including the use of appropriate technical devices to meet
halal standards,” Rudd said at a joint news conference in Jakarta.
Australia’s
agriculture minister said this week it had revised export control orders to
require ranchers to apply for permits to meet welfare requirements, and to
trace cattle from farms through shipping to abattoirs with agreed standards.
The
minority government had been under pressure from ranchers to overturn the ban.
Cattle
producers had warned the decision was costing jobs and that domestic beef
prices would fall, while some had also threatened to slaughter stock.
Elders Ltd,
one of Australia’s largest shippers of live cattle to Indonesia with up to
200,000 head annually, said it had booked a ship on Aug. 1 to take 3,200 cattle
to its Indonesian abattoir.
“We expect
to be up and running by Aug. 1 ... that’s the game plan at the moment,” said
Malcolm Jackman, chief executive of Elders.
Elders owns
a fully accredited abattoir in Indonesia and on Thursday said it was willing to
provide the needed third-party certification that would be transparent and
provide full traceability.
The
abattoir stuns the cattle before slaughtering them, a practice that is seen as
causing less distress to cattle. The ban came after television footage showed
cattle being beaten, whipped and maimed prior to slaughter in some abattoirs.
Jackman
said it would still take at least two months for shipments to pick up.
“It depends
how quickly it can be done before the wet season starts,” he said. “Everyone is
a lot happier than they were a week ago -- that’s for sure.”
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