Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he has secured a promise from China's Premier Li Qiang to lift a ban on Australian rock lobsters by the end of the year.

The news will be welcomed by the rock lobster industry, which has struggled since being locked out of the lucrative market, and which had been growing increasingly frustrated by the delay to restoring the trade.

Mr Albanese met with Premier Li on Thursday on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting in Laos, and emerged saying China's second most senior leader had agreed on a "timetable" to let lobsters back by the end of this year, in time for Chinese New Year in early 2025.

"This will be welcomed by the people engaged in the live lobster industry in places like Geraldton and South Australia and Tasmania and so many parts of particularly regional Australia," he said.

Australian rock lobster exports to China were worth some $700 million a year before Beijing locked them out as part of a broader campaign of economic punishment against Australia in 2020 and 2021, when the bilateral relationship hit its nadir.

China has already removed tariffs and barriers on a host of other Australian products – including wine, coal and barley – leaving lobsters as the last major industry that remained frozen out of the massive market.

Mr Albanese told journalists in Vientiane that Premier Li's promise had once again vindicated the government's approach to China.

"With our patient, calibrated and deliberate approach, we've restored Australian trade with our largest export market, and today we discussed restarting exports of Australian live rock lobsters," Albanese said in Laos.

Industry relieved, with biggest customer set to return

Lobster fisher Clint Moss from Lancelin, north of Perth, said it was a relief to hear the industry's biggest customer may be back buying crayfish within the next few months.

"If the big guys have got together and signed on the dotted line, I'm more than happy with that," he told the ABC.

"We could start building business plans and futures for our families and other fishermen as well.

"Chinese New Year was always a fantastic time for us … in the past when the stars align we have really big catches and really high prices, so that could be unbelievably good news for a lot of fishers, that's for sure."

Mr Moss said when the market was closed, beach prices went from $73 to $15 per kilo for lobster, and about 50 boats had left the WA fishing fleet, unable to remain in the industry with a long period of depressed prices.

"I'm very relieved, I've been sitting on massive debt for a long time … I've been fingernails holding on, hoping."

China banned the lobsters on the grounds they detected heavy metals contamination – an allegation the government and the industry have always denied.

Andrew Feguson, managing director of lobster retailer and exporter Ferguson Australia, told the ABC that Mr Albanese's announcement was a bittersweet moment.

"It's been terribly difficult, the last four years, I can tell you," he said.

"While I'm excited and very pleased to hear this, for the industry's sake, we certainly can't lose sight of what happened over the last four years, and be prepared."

Before the ban, the business exported around 95 per cent of their products to China, and have since had to find other domestic and international markets for Southern Rock Lobster.

"One thing is for sure I'm not going to be going back into this blindly, I'll be hanging on to all the good work we've done in our diversification," Mr Ferguson said.

But despite the industry's best efforts, replacement markets could not compare to the demand and prices from Chinese customers.

Mr Ferguson also said the industry would have to do "a lot of work" to regain its market share, and predicted China wouldn't be as lucrative for fishers as it was before.

Missile test raised

The prime minister and Premier Li also discussed a host of thornier issues while in Laos, including confrontations in the South China Sea and China's recent intercontinental ballistic missile test in the Pacific, which drew sharp objections from several Pacific nations.

Mr Albanese signalled he raised Australia's concerns over a series of encounters between Chinese and Philippines vessels in the South China Sea, saying there had to be "military to military engagement and cooperation and dialogue to avoid any misadventure."

"I put forward our view about the importance of those international rules being upheld," he told journalists.

The prime minister said he also "discussed" the ballistic missile launch with the premier, although he didn't go into any detail.

"What's important is that friends are able to have direct discussions. It doesn't imply agreement. It doesn't imply compliance, and I'll always represent Australia's national interest," he said.

"That's what I did today."