China has slapped punitive duties on imports of Australian wine, and otherwise made its entry into China tough, to penalise the country for initiating scrutiny of China’s handling of the outbreak of Covid. Some pundits in India think their government should express solidarity with Australia by slashing the import duty on wine, say, for a year.
This would signal that India takes its membership of the Quad, a loose grouping of Australia, Japan, the US and India, seriously.
India should reduce the import duty on wine from the current rate of 150%, to create demand for Australian wine. India imports limited quantities of wine: in 2018, wine imports were to the tune of 5.2 million litres. Domestic wine producers have little to fear, given that demand is growing at around 14%.
