Australia’s wine industry body ‘Wine Australia’ will be closing its only physical office in China as expors to China fall because of Beijing’s prohibitive import duties.
“Wine Australia has made the difficult decision to close our physical office in Shanghai. This decision follows extensive consultation with the Australian grape and wine sector and is based on the current environment and market opportunity,” a spokeswoman said.
“Wine Australia will continue to maintain our brand presence in China via our wine trade and consumer facing social media channels, and will continue to work closely with in-market trade representatives on brand building and marketing campaigns.”
The once 1.2 billion Australian dollar-a-year export trade ($830 million) has fallen to just over AU$200 million at the end of March.