Australian winemakers will soon have a chance for a competitive return to what was once their biggest market.
China has ended tariffs of up to 200% on Australian wine, but that’s not likely to mean an overnight boom in business. The end of more than three years of tariffs on the wine may adjust a market that had all but evaporated.
Demand for Australian wine in China went from nearly $800 million a year and growing, to about $6.5 million.
But the end of trade penalties does not mean that hundreds of millions of dollars are about to be poured into Australian winemakers.
Trade patterns have shifted.
The chief executive of the industry group Australian Grape and Wine tells Australia’s Nine Network “it will take years” to get back to the market size of the pre-tariff time.
China’s economy has also changed — along with the taste for imported wine — or at least the willingness to pay for it, according to The Journal of Wine Economics.
The journal says that Chinese wine consumption peaked in 2017 and sales of imported wine have fallen by half since then.
It’s a much different story for another Australian export but at a fraction of the volume.
However, the Observatory of Economic Complexity says China is the fastest-growing export market in the world for Australian beer.
