BEIJING, 6 May, 2021 (TON): On Thursday China "indefinitely" suspended all activity under a China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, its state economic planner said, the latest setback for strained relations between the two countries.

"Recently, some Australian Commonwealth Government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination," China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement on the decision.

The commission did not say in the statement what specific measures prompted the action.

The Australian dollar fell sharply on the news, and was as low as 0.7701 to the U.S. dollar from Wednesday's $0.7747.

The last meeting was in Beijing in 2017, when Australia's trade minister signed an agreement on cooperation on Belt and Road projects in third-party countries.

Australia-China relations plummeted to new lows, making the “deep freeze” of recent years seem almost balmy.

Relations worsened last year when Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of the novel coronavirus, prompting trade reprisals from China. Australian economy is also highly dependent on China.