Chinese wine tariffs on Australia finally removed

On March 29th, China removed tariffs of over 200% on Australian wine imports. China has failed to justify its case of anti-dumping at the WTO and is now dropping the tariffs it used to punish Australia.

The tariffs were imposed as a retaliation against Australia calling for an open investigation into the origin of Covid. Before Covid, China was Australia’s largest wine export market, valued at around AUS $1.1bn, aided by a free trade agreement in 2015, which gave Australia a 14% tariff advantage over other nations. The tariffs caused Australian wine sales to slip from 27.46% of total imported wines to China to just 0.14% in 2020, when the tariffs were imposed.