AnuvaBlog

Argentine growth in wine exports to the US has been remarkable during the last seven years: 2003-38M, 2004-48M, 2005-67M, 2006-92M, 2007-132M, 2008-183M, 1Q 09–51M. It is estimated that Argentina will close out the 2009 calendar year with $ 220.000.000 in shipments to the US.  During April 09, Argentina exported, in value, $ 18.737.976 vs. $ 11.380.587 in April 08, an increase of 64.6% and in volume it exported 5.906.462 liters in April 09 vs. 2.782.652 liters in April 08, an increase of 112%. The FOB cost per liter in April 09 is $ 3.17 vs. $ 4.09 in April 08, a drop of -22.5%.

During the 1st four months of 2009 Argentine Customs reported US exports of 1.966.955 nine-liter cases totaling $ 64.902.928 at an average price of $ 33 per nine-liter case. US Customs reports that for the same period Argentina exported $ 70.340.285 (including BTW) and 30.006.359 liters, or 3.334.039 nine-liter cases. The difference between the Argentine Customs Report and the US Customs Report is $ 5.437.357 and 1.367.084 nine-liter cases…this is the BTW amount for the first four months of 2009. There is a small variation in the four-month report of the two Customs due to timing issues. Argentine customs reports all shipments leaving its ports as of April 30th, while the US Customs only reports shipments landed at its ports as of April 30th. As we can appreciate 1) a number of the April 09 shipments from Argentina will not arrive on US shores until May 09 and 2) a number of shipments that left the Argentine ports on December 08, will not arrive in the US until January 09. Therefore, the timing issues will cause the two four-month reports to vary slightly. The 1.367.084 nine-liter case equivalents for $ 5.437.357 gives us an average of $ 0.44 per liter of BTW, which is not too far from the 2008 results of $ 0.46 per liter.