May 11, 2015

Researchers at Adelaide University and Victoria University have stated that Asian markets, led by China, will grow to dominate world wine consumption within the next three years creating significant shifts in global trade flows.

China’s domestic wine industry has been growing over recent years, becoming the fifth largest in the world, however this domestic expansion has not been able to keep pace with demand.

Once bilateral trade agreements between China and Chile, Australia, and New Zealand come into full effect, it is estimated that Chinese net wine imports could increase between 330 million and 790 million liters between 2011 and 2018 according to data compiled by the universities through research funded by Australia’s Grape and Wine Authority.

“Exporting firms willing to invest sufficiently in building relationships with their Chinese importer or in grape growing and winemaking as joint ventures in China, may well enjoy long-term benefits from such investments, just as others have done and continue to do for many other products besides wine,” Professor Kym Anderson of Adelaide University tells Food Navigator.

The researchers add that even China’s recent policies of austerity that have slowed the growth of ultra-premium wine sales in China will have little overall effect upon the industry and market as a whole.

“It is the sheer size of China’s adult population, and the fact that grape wine still accounts for less than 4% of Chinese alcohol consumption, that makes the import growth opportunity unprecedented,” states University of Adelaide’s Kym Anderson.

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