Chile, the strenght of zero custom duty

The difficulties derived from the importation custom duties are one of the main obstacles that wine encounters during its travel towards the different countries of the world. In the international scene of exchanges in the wine-growing and wine-producing framework there is a country which is giving an efficient example of management of these difficulties related to custom duties: Chile. It is a country open to exports, which, in its continent is a part of Nafta (North American Free Trade Agreement) and of Mercosur (Southern Common Market). These two agreements ensure that, without paying any custom duties, the Chilean wines can enter strategic markets, such as the United States, Canada, Mexico and the whole continent. In addition to this, the trade policy of the Chilean authorities led to the drawing-up of important trade agreements with the European Union, Japan and China, where the Chilean wines are imported with reduced or zero custom duties, making them in fact much more competitive than the wines from the other supplying countries.

Therefore, Chile does not pay any custom duties towards Brazil, the European Union, the USA and Canada and reduced duties towards China, even ten times less on the cask wine in comparison to the average of competitors. This is one of the reasons of the recent export boom of Chilean wines to these markets, particularly to China, where in few years, the Chileans have become the third suppliers of bottled wine, and in Japan, – where this year in March they outvalued Italy – they were the second suppliers after France. But also in Europe – thanks to the great performances achieved in the last few years in the United Kingdom, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Ireland and Germany – the Chileans are now the first exporters of bottled wines, with a volume permanently over 1 million and 600,000 hectolitres, for a value closer to half billion euro, i.e. equal to the amount totalled together by the USA and New Zealand, second and third partner of the EU. With regard to cask wine, the Chileans are instead in fourth position, for a value of 130 million euro and 1.4 million hectolitres, mostly delivered to the UK and Germany.

Source: Simei (by Vicent Escamilla, Corriere vinicolo)

Olio Officina