China has suspended imports from four of Australia's largest meat processors, said the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

"When inspecting imported meat products, the Chinese Customs continuously found that multiple batches of Australian beef products exported to China by few Australian companies violated the inspection and quarantine requirements jointly determined by authorities from both sides," the ministry's spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters in a press conference.

Austrilia's Kilcoy Pastoral Company, JBS's Beef City and Dinmore plants, and the Northern Cooperative Meat Company have been banned from exporting beef to China due to issues with labeling and health certificates, according to Australia's Trade Minister Simon Birmingham.

Labeling issues were also cited by Beijing when the same companies and two others lost their licences to ship beef to China in 2017 for several months.

"Thousands of jobs relate to these meat processing facilities. Many more farmers rely upon them in terms of selling cattle into those facilities," Birmingham told reporters in Canberra.

Australian Meat Industry Council chief executive Patrick Hutchinson said the companies made up approximately 20 percent of Australian beef exports to China.

(With input from Reuters)