Australia’s changing competitiveness in global wine markets

Summary

Objective

The project will:

• Update and revise the database of global beverage markets
• Update and revise the book Which Winegrape Varieties are Grown Where? A Global Empirical Picture
• Provide an economy-wide model for Australia’s wine regions based on the Centre of Policy Studies (CoPS) The Enormous Regional Model (TERM).
• Provide knowledge of the impact of trends in and policies affecting global beverage markets and Australia’s regional grape and wine markets to 2025 or later

Background

Given the close link between Australia’s wine export prices and winegrape prices, both grapegrowers and wineries, along with their industry leaders, need to understand the forces altering Australia’s international competitiveness in the world’s wine markets.

These include changing consumer preferences and technological developments in Australia and elsewhere plus macroeconomic shocks to income growth and exchange rates and new/prospective bilateral and regional trade agreements and changes to excise tax and other regulations affecting wine and other alcohol consumption.

The implications of those developments for Australia’s various wine regions also need analysing, along with challenges such as climate change and its effects on irrigation water availability and prices. A model of the Australian economy with pertinent regional detail is required for such analysis.

Research approach

The three database and economic model assets will be updated and rebuilt followed by analysis.

A new 2016 global snapshot will be built, plus time series since 2010 (plus production and prices for the few countries where data are available). Updated tables and charts will be developed for the ebook.

The economic model of global wine markets into a global beverage markets model will be revised, updated and expanded by adding beer and spirits (with Professor Glyn Wittwer of the Centre for Policy Studies, Victoria University).

Past global articles on alcohol taxation rates will be updated drawing on the Global Markets compendium of data. Shocks to Australia’s wine trade will be analysed with the updated global model and will provide inputs into scenarios to be analysed with the national model of Australia’s economy and its various wine regions.

Sector benefits

The sector will be provided with up-to-date data and a global model of the worlds wine markets which are essential to adequately analyse developments for Australia’s wine regions, along with analysis of various micro and macro-economic shocks and implications impacting the Australian wine sector.