The ongoing spat between China and Australia moved up a notch yesterday when China suspended imports from four Australian abattoirs. The suspension comes just days after Beijing announced plans to impose an 80% tariff on Australian barley, accusing its neighbour of conducting a long-term dumping exercise. China is Australia’s number one export market for beef by volume (as well as its largest trading partner overall) making up 30% of its total beef exports. The move is being seen as a retaliation to Scott Morrison, the Australian Prime Minister’s demand for an independent investigation into the COVID 19 outbreak. A Chinese ambassador to Canberra had already threatened to boycott beef a number of weeks ago, along with higher education and wine.
The Australian Meat Industry Council said it believes the ban, whilst not desirable, would be temporary, as they had dealt with such issues before. Three years ago, China banned imports from six Australian meat works, including the four processors caught up in the current ban. That ban was in retaliation to a labelling issue.
Also, we saw that Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s Chief Executive, does not expect air passenger traffic to climb to even 25% of recent years by September. In an interview with NBC he stated ‘Traffic levels will not be back to 100%. They won't even be back to 25%. Maybe by the end of the year we approach 50%. So, there will definitely be adjustments that have to be made on the part of the airlines’. He was also asked if he saw the possibility of one of the major US carriers going to the wall. Calhoun replied ‘Yes, most likely. You know, something will happen when September comes around’.
Boeing was quick to state they had no knowledge of any one carrier in mind when Calhoun responded to the question ‘He was speaking to the general uncertainty in the sector, not about any one particular airline’ a statement read. Pinch of salt??