by Ian D’Agata
In order to analyze and understand the present and future of the Chinese wine industry and what its sales market means to world wines, it is essential to know a few important, facts. The Chinese economy is massive: according to 2021 data, it is the second largest in the world when measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Its US$17.7 trillion (114.4 trillion yuan) is second only to that of the USA; in other words, China produces 9.3 percent of global GDP. (In fact, China’s economy has been the world’s largest since 2017, when measured by Purchasing Power Parity or PPP.) Furthermore, according to estimates by the World Bank, while China’s GDP was approximately only 11% of the USA’s in 1960, it was up to 67% in 2019. The story is similar analyzing exports: in 1979, China’s exports represented a mere 0.8 percent of global exports of goods and nonfactor services; but from 1979 to 2009, these have grown by 16 percent per year. Currently, a great deal of the world’s manufacturing is Chinese, and there is a huge, quickly growing, consumer marketplace within the country that now looks for, enjoys, and desires the good things in life. It just so happens that wine is among those “good things of life”.
