China has agreed to lift the ban on all imports of pork products from Canada immediately, Ottawa announced Tuesday.

Pierre Lemieux, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of agriculture, told the House of Commons that reopening the border will give pork producers access to one of Canada's top agricultural export markets, providing $50 million in annual revenue in the past.

Ottawa has been in negotiations with China since it closed its border to Canadian pork in May 2009 with the outbreak of swine flu in a herd of pigs in Alberta.

At the time, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, once again stressed that eating pork does not pose a flu threat.

Jurgen Preugschas, an Alberta hog farmer and chair of industry group the Canadian Pork Council, said in May he believed China was simply making a "very quick decision."

"Quite often, countries have knee-jerk reactions to news out of another country," he said then. "It's easier to close the border and then talk about it and think about it and get all the details."