China will lift anti-subsidy and anti-dumping excise duties on Australian wine from March 29, said the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Thursday (28/3). This ends the punitive levy for the past three years and gives Australian wine producers long-awaited relief.
“Given that the situation in China's wine market has changed, the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy excise duties imposed on wine imported from Australia are no longer necessary,” a Ministry of Commerce spokesperson, He Yadong, said in a statement.
The tariffs, which amount to 218.4 percent, were first imposed in March 2021 for a period of five years along with a number of other trade barriers on Australian commodities as relations between the two countries soured after Canberra called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.
Relations between the two countries have improved significantly since last year, with China continuing to remove trade barriers on a range of Australian products from barley to coal, and raising hopes that punitive tariffs on wine, Australia's main export, will soon be removed. (uh/ab)