The Australian apple industry has had a meeting with the country's agriculture minister Tony Burke to voice their concerns regarding the biosecurity issues involved in allowing Chinese apple imports into the country.
According to Apple and Pear Australia general manager Tony Russell, who attended the meeting in Melbourne yesterday, Mr Burke will take the industry's concerns into consideration.
"The positive thing is that we've had the meeting and we had some open discussions about our biosecurity concerns," Mr Russell told Fruitnet.com.
"We think the minister is on top of the issue now. He's got both sides of the story and he'll take those away and review our concerns."
Mr Russell said the industry's chief concern is with the spotted-wing drosophila, a destructive fruit fly present in China which has also recently been discovered in the US, preventing table grape exports to Australia so far this winter.
"What we want is for all biosecurity concerns to have been resolved. In our minds there are still question marks over one particular pest."
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