Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguards deal on Monday, witnessed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, to allow Beijing to import Australian uranium for power generation.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard (L) shakes hands with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao¡¡in Canberra April 3, 2006. Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguards deal to allow Beijing to import Australian uranium for power generation Monday morning. Wen is the first Chinese Premier to visit Australia in 18 years. [Reuters]

Australia, which has about 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, only allows uranium sales to members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty who also agree to a separate bilateral safeguards deal.

Australia currently has only three operating uranium mines, owned by BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and General Atomics of the United States, and Canberra has said significant uranium exports to China were unlikely to start until 2010.

Australia agreed in principle during a visit by Howard to China in April last year to work on a nuclear safeguards agreement that would permit sales of uranium to China for peaceful purposes.

Plans to negotiate the nuclear cooperation agreement with China were confirmed by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last August£®

A nuclear deal would augment a broader Australia-China free trade agreement that is now under negotiation.