Australian winemakers shipped just A$12 million ($9 million) of wines to China in the December quarter, from A$325 million a year earlier, industry figures showed, confirming that hefty new tariffs have all but wiped out their biggest export market.
The figures from Wine Australia show the swift impact of measures taken by China's commerce ministry and the country's anti-dumping probe into imports of Australian wines last year.
“Notwithstanding the impact of China’s tariffs, we were still looking at a potential downturn in exports over this period simply due to the supply situation”, Wine Australia Chief Executive Officer Andreas Clark said in a news release.
In the three months to end-December, the quarter after China said it was investigating the Australians on suspicion of exporting wine at a loss to gain market share, or "dumping", Australian wine shipments collapsed to almost nothing and stayed there at the start of 2021, the figures showed.
編輯：Frida Xu
