New Zealand has confirmed it will join Australia in a World Trade Organisation complaint against Canada over allegedly “arbitrary and disadvantageous” treatment of wine imports.
Talks have broken down after Canada’s stance on the sale of imported wine in the country’s grocery stores.
Kiwi exporters are likely to face the same barriers as Australia by denying access to the lucrative $7 billion Canadian wine market.
“Our industry’s doing incredibly well, especially into the United States, and Canada’s obviously a close neighbour so it would be fantastic to have more of an equal opportunity into that market,” a spokesman said.
Protectionism has “ramped up” in recent years in Canada led by the various provinces.
Australia’s formal “request for consultations” to the WTO argues a range of distribution, licensing and sales measures, including product mark-ups, market access and listing policies, may discriminate “either directly or indirectly” against imported wine.
In the Canadian province of British Columbia, only the province’s wine can be sold on regular grocery store shelves, while imports can only be sold “through a so-called ‘store within a store’’.
New Zealand exporters will face the same barriers as the Aussies.
So why am I telling you all this?
Well after spending two weeks late last year visiting the Okanagan Valley wine region (Special Post to come) I can’t blame them keeping the NZ and Australian wines at bay. The local wines are mostly akin to Penfolds ‘Rawsons Retreat’ and Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc!
In short, if our quality export wines were available in Canada no would buy the local product. The $7 billion Canadian wine market would be protected!
