National wine exports rose 3 per cent in 2018, reaching 803 million euros, president ViniPortugal said on the sidelines of the inauguration of the new Porto test room.
[dropcap type=”default”]”W[/dropcap]e had a very good first half and a very bad last quarter“, which is why growth was three per cent, with “a drop in fortified wines“, such as in Porto and Madeira, and “arise in a wine of table “, specified Jorge Monteiro.
The same official said that other producing countries had similar performances, including South Africa, which grew 4.2 per cent in value, Australia 2.8 and France 2.4.
The president of ViniPortugal affirms that for some years the market of liqueur wines has stagnated, which has been compensated by the favourable performance of the table wines.
“There are two markets that greatly influenced these results” of Portuguese wines, “Angola, which continues to fall, about 15 per cent in 2018, and China, which has stagnated,” said Jorge Monteiro, adding that “Macau and Hong Kong have fallen “.
The official said that “France behaved similarly to Portugal in the Chinese market and also saw a decline in its exports, and apparently the only country that won in China was Australia. ”
“Therefore, China, with Macau and Hong Kong and Angola were what determined this cooling,” he said.
Jorge Monteiro concluded that the Portuguese wine had “a good performance“, but below the expectation. “It will still take our economy to grow like these exports,” he noted, noting that “the world market is undergoing some disturbances today.”
For this year, the fiscal year carries risks because the “international situation is of some uncertainty” and this requires maximum attention, he said.
“The international economy is cooling, it is Brexit and we do not know what is happening in China. It is too early to make forecasts,” noted Jorge Monteiro.
In addition, the “harvest of 2018 was short and the production lower by 600 thousand hectoliters“, the reason why Jorge Monteiro fears “a smaller capacity of supply of the market, that can compel to buy more wine in competing markets, like Spain and France, to maintain export capacity ”
ViniPortugal, as an interprofessional organization of Portuguese wine, grouping different agents of the sector, executed the promotional actions of Portuguese wine foreseen for 2018 and “very consumer-oriented” and by 2019 has “seven million euros” to invest in this area, according to its president.
This year, he said, the institution will “work Mexico and Denmark for the first time” and, because the distribution has improved, bet more on consumers than on professionals, which already happens in Brazil and will happen in the United States, where a “big event” is planned.
In a very brief look at 2018, Jorge Monteiro stressed the Moscow test [was] a novelty and had a huge commitment, “but others were held in countries such as the United States and Angola, which is a falling market. ”
Jorge Monteiro also considered that “the great project” of the institution in 2018 was the Porto test room, which now operates in a building provided by the local Misericórdia under a “partnership” between the two parties and in which 180 thousand euros.
