The stalled talks over a Free Trade Agreement between Australia and China will resume in Canberra this month.
Announcing this while addressing Foreign Correspondents' Association in Sydney Tuesday, Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said agriculture remained a stumbling block.
He made it clear that "It is clearly impossible for Australia to accept an FTA outcome that is lesser than China has already offered to New Zealand when it comes to agriculture."
The Australian government believes an agreement on a global trade pact is still possible in 2010, Crean added.
The first round of negotiations for an Australia-China FTA was held in Sydney in May 2005, but there have been no further talks since the 13th round in Beijing in December 2008.
Relations between the two countries strained last year after Chinese state-owned company Chinalco's failure to buy a major stake in Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto.
The arrest in July 2009 of Stern Hu, Rio Tinto's head of iron ore operations in China, and three other Shanghai-based staff of the company, worsened the situation.
China is Australia's biggest merchandise trade partner with two-way trade worth around $76 billion in the fiscal year 2009. Australia exported iron ore and coal worth more than $25 billion to China.
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