Australian lobster fishers will be able to resume exporting to the lucrative Chinese market by the end of the year, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing China had agreed to lift its last major remaining trade barrier between the nations.

Albanese made the announcement after meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the ASEAN summit in Laos on Thursday afternoon, signalling a long-awaited end to China’s campaign of trade sanctions imposed as an act of political retribution against the Morrison government in 2020.

“Premier Li and I agreed on a timetable to resume full lobster trade by the end of this year. This, of course, will be in time for Chinese New Year,” Albanese said.

He said the government’s “patient, calibrated and deliberate approach” had led to the restoration of trade ties with Australia’s largest export market, praising the work done to effect “the removal of trade impediments one by one”.

“The premier pointed out the quite considerable growth that has occurred in Australian exports, including wine and barley, that has grown to be larger than what was there before there were impediments to that trade.”

Lobster exporter Andrew Ferguson, who runs Ferguson Australia in South Australia, said he welcomed the end to four years of confusion.

However, he said it remained unclear how China exports would recover.

“Whether the market is the same as where it left off, that’s the big question. I seriously don’t think it will be the same volume or the pricing,” Ferguson said.

“It gives us another big option, but we’ve done a lot of work in other markets and we’ve developed products in the supermarkets and a lot of the supermarkets in Australia have now got our products.