2018: Chinese demand drives Aussie wine exports to $2 bln

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The value of Australia's wine exports grew by 10 percent to 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2018 with China again leading the way, data has revealed.

China was not only the biggest buyer of Australian wine but also the fastest growing market. The country bought a total of 812 million U.S. dollars' worth of Australia's wine in 2018, an 18-percent increase from last year, according to the data from Wine Australia, an Australian Government authority that promotes and regulates the Australian wine industry.

"We're in a really strong position in China, in terms of the continuing trade's appreciation for what Australian wine has to offer across all our price points, so we have a really solid platform of what we're taking to market there," Andreas Clark, chief executive officer of Wine Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday night.

Altogether, 94 million nine-liter cases of Australian wine were sold around the world in 2018, up 5 percent from 2017.

Red wine remained the biggest seller and now accounts for 76 percent of Australia's total wine exports.

"An interesting figure, which always brings it into a bit of perspective, is that 22 million glasses of Australian wine is consumed by our global customers every day," Clark said

The export volume of wines worth between 100 and 200 Australian dollars (71 to142 U.S. dollars) per bottle grew 92 percent, comfortably the strongest growth by any price point.

The United States remained the second most lucrative market for Australian wines despite the value of exports to the country falling by 5 percent to 425 million Australian dollars (302 million U.S.dollars).

The value of exports to other major markets including Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan all rose by at least 12 percent.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency