There are signs that China could be ready to discuss lifting the trade bans that pushed Australian lobster fishers close to breaking point.
Trade Minister Don Farrell is yet to meet his Chinese counterpart but says ambassador Xiao Qian has indicated his government is "prepared to have these discussions".
"My job now is to convince China to change its view," Mr Farrell said.
"There's been a couple of positive signs."
In 2020 China implemented trade restrictions on Australian products including rock lobsters, cotton, wine, barley, timber and coal.
Exporters were forced to search for alternative markets, which proved difficult for rock lobster fishers.
Gordon Lewis owns two fishing boats in Port Macdonnell, South Australia, one of the country's largest rock lobster fisheries.
He said after fishing for the first few days of the season, he pulled his boats out for more than two weeks because volatile prices had made it unaffordable.
"Everyone is struggling," he said.
"When you can look out and see all the boats home you know things aren't good in the industry."
Domestic glut
With China no longer taking the majority of the catch, oversupply in the domestic market led to a price drop.
Rock lobsters were selling for as little as $35 per kilogram and at an average of about $38/kg.
That was good news for consumers, but for fishers it was well below $50/kg required to break even.
"With all the boats out there, they'll fill the tanks really quick and probably flood the market again," Mr Lewis said.
"Our main market is China — it's our only market that will take the quantity and pay the price.
"Until we can get in the front door of China again we're going to struggle.
"The domestic market doesn't hold up — they just can't take the quantity that comes in."
'Too many eggs'
In Western Australia the beach price for western rock lobster is roughly half what it was before the pandemic, leaving fishers on the margin of viability.
Geraldton Fishermen's Co-operative chief executive Matt Rutter said the industry was fortunate to have a large fishery with a lower cost to catch ratio than Southern Lobster fishers, but the co-op was working hard to diversify markets.
"We would certainly welcome China back with open arms and we would like to see prices get back to where they [were]," he said.
"Even aside from China we are doing everything we can to drive additional demand and to drive the prices up in all the other markets around the world."
Mr Farrell toured Japan and Korea this week spruiking Australian wine and lobsters to try and boost the market share in those countries.
"If the truth be known, we put too many eggs in the in the China basket," he said.
"The bans at the moment represent a loss of business to Australia [of] about $20 billion a year, so it's a very big hit to our export business."
Mr Farrell said even if China lifted the trade bans, it was important Australia diversified its export markets.
"We have to build on that to increase our exports," he said.
"I don't think we ever want to get into a situation where we again are so reliant on China as a source of our exports."
