China Starts New Probe Into Australian Wine Imports

The mainland said on Monday it had launched an anti-subsidy investigation on some wine imports from Australia, two weeks after announcing it had begun an anti-dumping probe on such imports.

The investigations come against a backdrop of increasing tensions between the two countries after Canberra called for an international inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus, which was first detected in Wuhan.

The commerce ministry said in an online statement the anti-subsidy investigation was launched on August 31 after a request from the China Wine Industry Association which said the wine imports had received subsidies from the Australian government.

The investigation will be on "wines in containers holding 2 litres or less", and should be completed within a year or be extended to end-February 2022 under special circumstances.

The ministry also said that it would be investigating 37 subsidy items granted by the Australian government to its wine industry players, including "farm risk management", "farm financing loan scheme" and "business growth funding projects".

The mainland is the top market for Australian wine exports and is also Australia's largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth A$235 billion last year.

Beijing recently imposed dumping tariffs on Australian barley, suspended some beef imports and told Chinese students and tourists it was not safe to travel to Australia because of accusations of racism.

News of the earlier investigation had knocked a fifth off the market value of Australia's biggest winemaker, Treasury Wine Estates. They were trading 0.8% higher on Monday amid the broader market's 0.3% rise.

As in the anti-dumping investigation, the mainland will look at Australian wines imported in 2019 and examine the damage done to the domestic wine industry from 2015 to 2019 in the anti-subsidy investigation. (Reuters)