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Australia "disappointed" at Indonesia's decision to sharply cut live cattle exports

Xinhua, July 14, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Australian government on Tuesday expressed deep disappointment at Indonesia's decision to drastically slash the number of live cattle it aims to imports from Australia.

Australian farmers were told on Monday afternoon that the number of permits for live cattle to be exported to Indonesia had been reduced from an expected 200,000 for the third quarter period to just 50,000.

It's a sharp drop from 250,000 that were exported to the Asian nation in the second quarter.

A spokesperson for Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce said while it respected the decision made by Indonesian authorities, the Australian government was very "disappointed."

The Australian Livestock Exporters Council's CEO Alison Penfold told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday that the Australian cattle industry was in shock at the decision.

"It's significantly below our expectations and what was called for by industry in Indonesia," she said.

Beef cattle farmer Haydn Sale said the news would be a " headache" for farmers and exporters who expected much greater sales to Indonesia.

"It seems to me to be an extraordinarily low number, especially after the religious festival they've just had and the numbers have been cleared out. It's very low," Sale said.

An opposition spokesperson blamed the deteriorating political relationship for the decision, citing Prime Minister Tony Abbott's combative attitude toward the Bali 9 executions and the policy of turning back asylum seeker boats to Indonesia as two issues that contributed to Indonesia's decision.

"Of course the Abbott government's relationship with Indonesia or the deterioration of it won't be helping at all," shadow agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said on Tuesday.

But Penfold said it was "absolutely not" related to other issues, simply, a pricing and supply and demand issue.

"This is a matter purely involving production issues in Indonesia, and supply issues," she said.

"It's got nothing to do with anything else."

She said live cattle exports in the third quarter in 2012 were at similar numbers; just 62,000 were shipped from Australia to Indonesia.

However she said it was still the lowest Q3 figure in five years. Last year, 184,000 head of cattle were shipped in the same period. Endi