Retail sales to shrink, only to swell from 2017

Price cuts that kept China's wine market low in recent years will continue this year, and the retail market value will shrink, only to rebound from next year, according to an industry survey.

According to the latest issue of the China Wine Report by Mintel Group Ltd, prices will rise from next year, so too will retail sales value, with the market growing at a healthy 5 percent or more till 2020.

Till 2012, volume growth was in double digits, but the government's anti-extravagance campaign hit sales and imports of wines hard. Volume growth turned negative, necessitating industry restructuring and price cuts.