Figures released by Wine Australia this week show an eight per cent drop in Australian wine exports to the US over the past year due to the impact of the three-tier distribution system.
CEO of Wine Australia Andreas Clark said that growing the China and USA markets is the “key focus” of the government’s $50 million export and regional wine support package.
“We are seeing strong growth in China and we have redoubled our efforts in the USA to capture more of the premium end of the market as American consumers trade up to higher priced wines,” Clark said.
“While consolidation at the distribution level of the three-tier system is proving to be a difficult barrier to overcome, the hard work of Australian exporters willing to get in to market is starting to pay off.”
Overall, wine exports continue to experience strong growth, with an increase of 11 per cent in value to $2.71 billion.
Shipments of bottled wine increased by eight per cent to $2.16 billion and unpackaged wine grew by 23 per cent.
There were also increases in the average value of wine exported, with a seven per cent increase for bottled wine to $5.90 per litre, a 13 per cent increase of unpackaged wine to $1.12 per litre and a five per cent increase of all wine exported to $3.21 per litre.
Northeast Asia had standout growth of 24 per cent, while Europe and Southeast Asia both saw growth of five per cent.
‘Australia exports more than 60 per cent of the wine we produce, so it’s important that we continue to build our export markets,” Clark said.
Wine Australia is currently delivering Growing Wine Export workshops in regional Australia to help new and experienced exporters to grow their exports.
‘Looking at the value and growth of exports over the past five years shows where we’ve come from. Just five years ago, Australian exports were worth $1.813 billion, and value had grown at 1 per cent over the previous 12 months’, Clark said.
