by David Sexton - last modified May 23, 2011 01:52 PM

A senior AQIS officer has warned that dodgy paperwork is affecting trade between Australia and several other nations

National manager for cargo and shipping, Jonathan Benyei, gave, as an example, a recent case of fraudulent quarantine documents from China.

Mr. Benyei, who was speaking at the CBFCA Southern Region Conference on Saturday, said last year Chinese authorities had established an authority to crack down on fraud within China's freight documentation process. This authority was expected to issue new goods certificates.

"In January, new certificates started appearing with consignments," Mr. Benyei said.

"We sent those certificates back to China to say 'are these the (new certificates) you were talking to us about?" he said.

"When we sent back some examples of some of the different sorts of notifications, China said 'no, these are fraudulent'."

Mr. Benyei said AQIS started receiving confirmatory letters which were also deemed to be fraudulent by the Chinese authorities. He said China had added more "checks and balances" to its processes.