Exports from Portugal’s wine sector are estimated to have totalled 930 million euros last year, up 8.6 per cent compared to 2020, according to business consulting firm Informa D&B.
France, the US and the UK are the main foreign markets, each with a share of more than 10 per cent of Portugal’s wine exports.
The sector’s trade surplus increased to 770 million euros, because wine imports fell to 163 million euros, 1.8 per cent less than the previous year.
Informa D&B stated that “the volume of wine production in the 2021-2022 campaign amounted to 7.3 million hectolitres, up 14.2 per cent on the previous campaign, which had registered a drop of around 2 per cent,” with “the Douro/Porto and Lisbon regions being the most important, accounting for 20 per cent of the total volume each, CLBrief reported.
“After the upward trend recorded between 2017 and 2019, the number of companies active in the wine sector has fallen, standing at 1,373 in 2020 (-1.1 per cent),” it added, stressing that “employment in the sector also lessened in that year, to around 10,800 workers.”
Small companies predominate in the sector, “with the average number of employees per company remaining at 7.5 people since 2014,” it noted. “There is a clear concentration in the north, where around 43 per cent of the total number of companies are based, followed by the centre (31 per cent) and Alentejo (14 per cent).”
