Lisbon, Aug. 12, 2024 (Lusa) - Portugal's wine exports grew by 8.58% in volume and 1.25% in value in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2023, according to ViniPortugal, which regrets the fall in the price per litre and attributes it to excess stock.
In the first half of 2024, 171.5 million litres were exported, worth €452.4 million, with an average price of €2.64 per litre.
In a statement, ViniPortugal said that "despite the significant increase in volume, it was not accompanied by a proportional growth in terms of price", resulting in a year-on-year decrease of 6.52% in the average price.
According to the association, this "reflects the pressure of stocks in the global wine sector".
Quoted in the statement, the president of ViniPortugal, Frederico Falcão, considered the increase in exports to be important, not least because it comes "at a time when the wine sector is facing an excess of stock in wineries" and because it means that Portuguese wines are in demand on international markets, demonstrating "competitiveness, resilience and quality".
However, he said, the sector still "faces a challenge in terms of the average price, which has fallen rather than risen".
As for export markets, the main ones by value are France (€53.4 million), the United States (€50.1 million) and Brazil (€38.9 million). By volume, France maintains its leading position (17.5 million litres), followed by Spain (16.4 million litres) and Angola (15.3 million litres).
In July, in an interview with Lusa, the president of ViniPortugal said that by 2030 the wine sector wanted to reach exports of €1.2 billion and increase the average price to €3.19 per litre, in order to "guarantee economic sustainability".
Frederico Falcão also defended the streamlining of funds to finance the promotion of Portuguese wine and said that the sector is struggling with problems of excess stock.
To combat the surplus of wine in wineries, ViniPortugal advocated measures, as already announced at European level, to distil some of the excess wine, whose alcohol will be used for other purposes.
In 2023 there was a reduction in wine consumption nationally and worldwide. In Portugal, the harvest was also larger than normal in 2023 and ViniPortugal predicts the same for this year, due to the restructuring of vineyards to make them more productive.
Last week, the Minister of Agriculture said that the €15 million in EU funding allocated to Portugal for crisis distillation was "a palliative" to help solve the problem of high wine stocks.
José Manuel Fernandes considered that it was due to a lack of "proactivity" that the situation had reached "a point [where] there is nowhere to put the wine" and that a new crisis distillation was necessary.
To the €15 million in support from the European Commission for crisis distillation in Portugal, the government's decree for which was published last week in the official government gazette, the minister said that €3.5 million must be added for the Douro Demarcated Region from the management balances of the Douro and Port Wine Institute (IVDP).
Also last week, the minister said that he doesn't want to "pit regions against each other" because of the price per litre of wine distillation, but that wine production is different between regions, in response to criticism about the price applied to wine distillation.
ViniPortugal brings together associations and organisations in the wine sector and its mission is to promote Portuguese wines.
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