Despite lifting Australia wine tariffs, China’s market offers no lifeline for global industry
- China lifted its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs on Australian wine at the end of last month amid improving relations between Beijing and Canberra
- But industry executives in China say the market, and domestic consumption, are struggling to recover from a downturn that began before the Covid-19 pandemic
Australia’s wine industry cheered news that China would drop anti-dumping tariffs, reopening its market to imports, but the tougher economic conditions of 2024 are unlikely to deliver the sparkling growth winemakers seek.
For two decades, China has driven growth in the global wine industry as many among the hundreds of millions entering its middle class acquired a taste for wines from Australia, Chile, Italy and France.
But industry executives in China said the market, and domestic consumption, are still struggling to recover from a downturn that began before the Covid-19 pandemic and was drawn out by the lengthy curbs it brought.
“The market has shrunk hugely in terms of consumer interest in wine, and that’s not showing any signs of reversing post Covid,” said Kym Anderson, executive director of the Wine Economics Research Centre at the University of Adelaide.
Part of the problem is that it’s lost that halo
China’s “apparent consumption” of wine in 2023, which includes imports and domestic production, was barely a quarter of its peak in 2017, with annual import volumes shrinking two-thirds over that period, he added.
