Imports of wine in January and February have seen an on-the-year growth of 0.2% following a serious decline during COVID-19 pandemic-hit 2020.
In early March, the General Administration of Customs released its “Major Commodities Imported/Exported Volume and Value Report” which detailed imports of 78,920 kiloliters of wine over the first two months of 2021. Value totaled RMB2.05 billion.
Last year, the Chinese imported wine market saw a steep decline of 28.8% in volume totaling 20.2% in value. The imported wine market is trying to rebound with customs also implementing measures to relieve and support the industry.
To this end, in March 2020 customs announced that imported goods arriving before the pandemic outbreak but with delayed declaration because of COVID-19 could apply for a reduction or exemption of late declaration fees. The same applied to delayed declaration owing to business disruption.
In another development aimed at combatting counterfeit wines, Chinese customs published protocol on customs declaration for import and export in January. It stated that imported wine would need to detail “import method (processing inside the original liquid area, processing outside the original liquid area, original bottle with the brand, domestic brand)” and “brand (Chinese and foreign names)”.
