Wine exports compared to GDP and to total exports
There is no easy answer to how “important” wine is to a country’s economy. It depends what you mean by “important”. You can, for example, look at how many people are employed in the production of wine, its distribution and auxiliary activities. I recently looked at how much wine is made per capita. You can also look at the value of the wine produced compared to the country’s GDP.
Here, unfortunately we don’t have the value of the wine produced in each country, we only have the export value. One could make an estimate of the value of the total wine production, for example based on the average price on export. But that will probably not be quite fair; it is e.g. likely that the average export price is higher than the average domestic price. (The average price on export is easily available, but the average price including domestic sales is hard to find, if even it exists.)
Read all our articles in the Wine Global 2020 series here:
- Global wine production 2020
- The World’s vineyard surface 2020
- How important is wine production to a country?
- The world’s most productive wine producing countries
- World wine consumption in 2020
- Wine consumption per person in 2020
- World wine exports in 2020
- World wine imports in 2020
- Wine exports compared to total production (dependency on exports)
- Wine exports compared to GDP and to total exports
- Average price per litre on export, by country
- Exports in bottle, sparkling, bag-in-box, bulk in 2020
Source: The data presented in this article come from the OIV, The International Organisation of Vine and Wine. Commentary and analysis is BKWine’s.
Instead, what we can do is two simple measures based on wine exports: We compare the value of the wine exports to
- the country GDP and
- the country total exports
How “accurate” these two measures are when looking at the economic importance of the wine sector will be dependent on how big a portion of the production that is exported, and on many other factors.
These will be very rough indications, but will show some interesting aspects of the world wine business.
Only countries exporting more than 2 Mhl are included in this analysis.
Wine exports compared to country GDP
Globally, world wine exports measures up as 0.04% of global GDP.
The country whose wine exports is largest compared to GDP is Chile, wine exports are 0.72% of GDP. In addition, Chile is also one of the countries that export most of its wine; an impressive 88% goes on export. So I think we can conclude that wine is an important industry for Chile.
In second place is New Zealand, wine exports compares as 0.62% of GDP. New Zealand is also the country that exports the highest percentage of its total wine production, as shown in this article.
Portugal, France and Italy are bunched around 0.4%.
At the very low end we have the USA and Germany, but they also export a relatively small part of their production, the majority being consumed domestically, in particular the US.
Wine exports as percentage of country GDP, 2020
| # vol | # val | wine export as % of GDP | Value 2020 M eur | GDP bn$ | GDP bn | % exported of total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 5 | Chile | 0.72% | 1,595 | 253 | 222 | 83% |
| 11 | 7 | New Zealand | 0.62% | 1,145 | 212 | 186 | 88% |
| 10 | 9 | Portugal | 0.42% | 846 | 231 | 203 | 48% |
| 3 | 1 | France | 0.38% | 8,736 | 2,603 | 2,283 | 29% |
| 1 | 2 | Italy | 0.38% | 6,233 | 1,886 | 1,654 | 42% |
| 2 | 3 | Spain | 0.23% | 2,626 | 1,281 | 1,123 | 50% |
| 8 | 11 | South Africa | 0.20% | 535 | 302 | 265 | 35% |
| 6 | 10 | Argentina | 0.20% | 655 | 383 | 336 | 37% |
| 5 | 4 | Australia | 0.15% | 1,787 | 1,331 | 1,167 | 71% |
| 9 | 8 | Germany | 0.03% | 882 | 3,806 | 3,338 | 40% |
| 7 | 6 | USA | 0.01% | 1,147 | 20,937 | 18,362 | 16% |
| 98 | 98 | Other | 3,413 | ||||
| 99 | 99 | Total | 0.04% | 29,600 | 84,705 | 74,286 |
GDP data from https://data.worldbank.org
Conversion of USD to EUR by the average 2020 exchange rate
Wine exports compared to country total export of Goods & Services
A comparison that is perhaps a little bit more logical is looking at wine exports relative to total exports of goods and services.
Wine is most important as an export product for New Zealand and for Chile, with wine accounting for 2.3% and 2% of exports respectively. So the same two countries as above are in the lead.
For the two biggest wine producers, France and Italy, wine is also an important part of total exports, 1.23% and 1.2% respectively. What is perhaps surprising is that the number for France is not bigger than what it is. It is often said that wine is the second biggest export category for France, after aerospace.
At the other end of the scale, where wine is a very small part of total exports, we have (again) USA and Germany.
Wine exports as percentage of country total exports, 2020
| # vol | # val | wine export as % of exports | Value 2020 M eur | export G&S bn $ | export G&S bn | % exported of total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 7 | New Zealand | 2.33% | 1,145 | 56 | 49 | 88% |
| 4 | 5 | Chile | 2.04% | 1,595 | 89 | 78 | 83% |
| 3 | 1 | France | 1.23% | 8,736 | 812 | 712 | 29% |
| 1 | 2 | Italy | 1.20% | 6,233 | 594 | 521 | 42% |
| 6 | 10 | Argentina | 1.10% | 655 | 68 | 60 | 37% |
| 10 | 9 | Portugal | 1.04% | 846 | 93 | 82 | 48% |
| 2 | 3 | Spain | 0.70% | 2,626 | 425 | 373 | 50% |
| 5 | 4 | Australia | 0.60% | 1,787 | 342 | 300 | 71% |
| 8 | 11 | South Africa | 0.55% | 535 | 111 | 97 | 35% |
| 9 | 8 | Germany | 0.06% | 882 | 1,807 | 1,585 | 40% |
| 7 | 6 | USA | 0.06% | 1,147 | 2,377 | 2,085 | 16% |
| 98 | 98 | Other | 3,413 | ||||
| 99 | 99 | Total | 0.14% | 29,600 | 23,941 | 20,996 |
Export of Goods and Services data from https://data.worldbank.org
Conversion usd to eur by the average 2020 exchange rate
Don’t take this analysis too seriously. It is far too approximate, but shows some interesting and fun facts.
