Australia and China signed a nuclear safeguards deal on Monday to allow Beijing to import Australian uranium for power generation, but an Australian minister said exports were unlikely to start for some years.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (back L) and Australian Prime Minister John Howard (back R) watch foreign ministers Li Zhaoxing (L) from China and Alexander Downer from Australia exchange the Nuclear Safeguard Agreement during a signing ceremony in Canberra's Parliament House April 3, 2006.  [Reuters]

The deal was signed in the presence of visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

China is expected to build 40 to 50 nuclear power plants over the next 20 years and needs steady supplies of uranium.

Australia has about 40 percent of the world's known uranium reserves, but it only allows sales to countries which have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) who also agree to a separate bilateral safeguards deal.

But it has only three operating uranium mines, owned by BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and General Atomics of the United States, and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said big uranium exports to China were unlikely to start until 2010.

"Australia is already fully committed in terms of uranium production through until about 2008, bearing in mind that the signing of this agreement means that this is really only the start of the process," Macfarlane told Australian radio.

He said once the safeguards deal was signed, China would then need to begin commercial negotiations with uranium producers in Australia, and new mines would probably need to be developed that would require licensing by the government.

"Realistically in terms of any significant quantity we are probably looking at some time past 2010," said Macfarlane, who met Wen in the Western Australian state capital Perth on Sunday.

Some analysts have said the safeguards deal between Australia and China, which are also negotiating a free trade deal, will test Canberra's skills at juggling growing ties with Asia's emerging power and its strong alliance with the United States.
 
Australia has 19 bilateral nuclear safeguard agreements, covering 36 countries, including the United States, France, Britain, Mexico, Japan, Finland and South Korea.
The NPT obligates the five nuclear-weapon states -- the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, and China -- not to transfer nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or technology to non-nuclear-weapon states and those which haven't signed the treaty.