Big wine shipments to Hong Kong

AUSTRALIAN wine makers have shipped millions of bottles of wine to Hong Kong in a bet that China will soon lift tariffs on Australian wine and revive a trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to industry figures and trade data.

Australia sent wine worth almost $800 million to China in the year to November 2020, when Beijing responded to a call in Canberra for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 by blocking imports.

But China has been lifting trade barriers on other goods as relations improve and Australian officials and industry expect a review of the wine tariffs begun by Beijing last year will lead to their removal next month.

Australia’s government said in December it was confident the tariffs would be lifted in early 2024. In November, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the first Australian leader to visit China in seven years, hoping to improve relations.

A diplomatic confrontation over a suspended death sentence given by a Chinese court to an Australian writer should not imperil progress on trade, Australia’s trade minister said this week.

Trade data show that Australian wine makers sent almost 2.5 million litres worth $65.5 million to Hong Kong in December, up from around 685,000 litres a month in recent years and the most since September 2019.

Announcing its agreement with Canberra to resolve the wine tariff dispute last October, China’s commerce ministry said China was willing to meet Australia halfway through dialogue and consultation and to jointly promote the healthy development of economic and trade relations.