A Libyan government delegation will be in Western Australia this week to discuss biosecurity and co-operative research and training with senior officers of the Department of Agriculture and Food and local universities, WA Agriculture Minister Kim Chance has announced.
The full text of an announcement from the Minister's office is pasted below
Agriculture and Food Minister Kim Chance will today meet with a senior Libyan delegation to promote Western Australian agriculture and investigate future trade opportunities.
Mr Chance said Libya was a traditional market for Australian agriculture services and products, particularly cattle and meat, but demand had fluctuated in recent years.
The Minister visited Libya in October 2002 and signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop co-operative projects between WA and the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahyria.
"This is an important opportunity to build on our existing ties with Libya under the current MOU and showcase the latest achievements in agricultural development in WA," Mr Chance said.
The nine-member delegation is led by Dr Abu-Baker Al-Mabrook Al-Mansouri, secretary of the General Peoples' Committee for Agriculture, Animal and Marine Wealth.
The delegation will spend three days in WA on the first leg of their visit that also includes Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.
The Libyan ministerial delegation will also meet with senior officers of the Department of Agriculture and Food and WA universities to discuss biosecurity and co-operative research and training.
As part of the visit, the delegation will tour the Department of Fisheries research centre at Hillarys and Murdoch University before heading to the Merredin Dryland Research Centre and a farming property at Bodallin.
The visit to Merredin will cover dryland agriculture, sheep production systems on medic pastures, minimum tillage, cereal and lupin cropping, revegetation and technology for semi-arid agriculture.
The visit is supported by the Department of Agriculture and Food, Austrade and DFAT.
