China’s wine imports have continued an upward trend seen in previous months, showing increases in both volume and value in the first eight months of the year, the latest figures from China Association of Imports and Export of Wine & Spirits have shown.

The country imported 474 million litres of wines worth about US$1.723 billion from January to August, representing a 15.76% rise in volume and a 8.48% increase in value.

Bottled wine imports, which took up about 91.9% of all the wine imports, grew by 12.61% year-on-year to 352.8 million litres during the period, while the value grew by 6.24% to US$1.57 billion. France still took the lion’s share of the bottled wine imports market, with a 42.5% market share, but its average import price dropped by 12.7% year-on-year to US$4.8 per litre, according to the report.

Australia came in second in terms of import value, followed by Chile, Spain, Italy, the US, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina and Portugal.

Meanwhile, spirits imports have seen the sharpest increases compared with wine, beer and other beverages. During the period, its import volume jumped by 23.66% to 44.3 million litres, while its value grew by 28.33% to US$658.8 million compared with the same period last year.

The increase, according to the trade association, is a result of strong performance from brandies, which amounted to over US$500 million.

In terms of beer, the country’s imports grew by 2.28% in volume to 469.4 million litres. Its import value amounted to US$ 482.9 million, representing a 3.34% increase year-on-year.