Melbourne: Australia and China have agreed to iron out their long standing differences over market access and investment policies and would speed up the process of forging a Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The decision was taken during a meeting between Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington, a day after the G-20 summit on the global economic crisis was concluded. In their hour-long meeting, the two leaders discussed on economic matters, including the Australia-China free trade deal.

"We've agreed to adopt a fresh approach to the speeding up the conclusion of this agreement even more," Rudd said adding "I can't put a specific time line on that, but we'll be reviewing progress again when next we meet," Rudd said.

"We agreed that we should hasten the conclusion of our Free Trade Agreement while recognising the obstacles which still lie in the path. We are confident that we can get real progress in the period ahead," he added.

Rudd has ended his Washington trip with a meeting with Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, and is now heading back to Australia. Rudd dubbed trade and fiscal stimulation as key weapons to fight the crisis, which he said, "began on credit and stock markets but now threatens jobs and has plunged much of the world into, or near to, recession."

The negotiations for an FTA were began by Howard government, but progress has been very slow as the Chinese seek greater freedom to invest in Australia, particularly its mining sector, while Australia wants free access to consumer markets for its goods and services.

Source : PTI