Chinese date jujube

The Australian government will provide support for six agricultural groups to visit China to explore marketing opportunities for products including mangoes, table grapes and Chinese red dates, otherwise known as jujube.

Australian minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry Tony Burke today announced the projects under the latest round of Australia's agribusiness program with China, the Australia-China Agricultural Cooperation Agreement (ACACA) programme.

Under the programme, six industry delegations will each visit China for up to two weeks over the next 18 months to make new contacts and to develop export opportunities.

"China is a major trading partner of Australia and in 2008/09 we exported around A$3.4bn (US$2.75bn) in agricultural goods," Mr Burke said.

"This year's agricultural delegations will explore export opportunities for Australian livestock, eels, Chinese red dates, mangoes and grapes.

"This kind of on-the-ground collaboration gives the project teams invaluable insights that can really make the difference to how they approach the Chinese market."