Chinese investors are buying heavily into Australia's top Barossa Valley region. Up to ten percent of the businesses in the world-famous region are now in Chinese ownership, management consultant Stephen Strachan, who specialises in wineries, told the Australian ABC News. About half of all inquiries to him for takeover advice come from China. The investment plans are now more carefully thought out than five years ago. "Back then, I heard in almost every meeting: How can we buy Penfold's?", Strachan explained.
The reason for the boom: last year, wine exports from Australia to China increased by 51 percent to 1.2 billion US dollars.
The biggest investment in the Australian wine business in the last ten years was made some time ago by the Chinese Weilong Wine Grape Company: For 120 million US dollars, it is having a winery built in which up to 84,000 tonnes of grapes per year can be processed. The operation is to start with the harvest in spring 2019. The entire wine production will be exported to China under the label "Green Dragon".
(uka)