CHINA has temporarily banned beef exports from six meatworks across Australia.

The Queensland plants involved include Australian Country Choice in Brisbane, Kilcoy's Pastoral Co, JBS Australia's Beef City and Primo facilities, as well as plants in NSW and South Australia.

AgForce cattle president Bim Struss said the export ban was related to a labelling issue.

"China is a very important market for Australia, worth approximately A$1billion for sheep and beef meat,” he said.

"We take China's concerns seriously; correct labelling is an important issue.”

Mr Struss said AgForce believed the ban would be resolved in a fairly reasonable amount of time.

"We hope it won't have a large effect on our cattle market,” he said.

"At the same time, Australia's processing sector has consistently shown it upholds a world recognised high standard in food safety and traceability.”

Australian Meat Industry Council CEO Patrick Hutchinson said AMIC was working with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on a diplomatic level and the Department of Agriculture on a regulatory level to get the matter resolved as quickly as possible.

"The labelling issues relate to what is in the carton and what is written on the label,” Mr Hutchinson said. "We're putting it down to human error, so it's very simplistic but it's very serious. We take China's regulations in regards to food security very seriously.”

Maranoa Regional Council portfolio chair of the saleyards, Councillor Peter Flynn, said he hoped the ban would not affect the Roma Saleyards, the largest cattle selling centre in the southern hemisphere.

"I don't believe it will have an effect, but I don't yet know of the reverberations through the entire cattle industry,” he said.