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On April 21, Japan's National Tax Agency opened a public comment period for the Guidelines for Handling Alcoholic Beverages with Organisms Developed with Genome Editing Technology. The public comment period will close on May 25, 2023.

On March 6, 2023, China notified the National Food Safety Standard for Fermented Wine and Its Preparation to the World Trade Organization (WTO) under G/SPS/N/CHN/1265.

Since the Netherlands lifted all COVID-19 related restrictions at the end of February 2022 and most people returned to the workplace, new opportunities continue to emerge for U.S. agricultural products. Consumers are especially interested in healthier, more convenient, nutritious, and high-quality products.

FAS and the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) in China worked together to educate, train, and promote Chinese breweries on how to use U.S. craft beer ingredients including hops and barely malts. Although U.S. hops and barley malts are priced higher than competitors, brewers have increasingly sought out U.S. ingredients for their high quality and stable supply.

On January 1, 2022, Poland implemented an amendment to the excise duty act on alcohol. The amendment increases the excise tax on alcohol by 10 percent and proposes the Excise Map, a schedule of additional excise tax increases of five percent each year during 2023-2027.

On December 6, 2021, the European Union published new rules concerning wine, dealcoholized and partially dealcoholized wine, and aromatized wine. These new rules introduce a compulsory nutrition declaration and a compulsory list of ingredients for wine products sold on the EU market beginning on December 8, 2023.

On January 3, 2022, Turkey announced the domestic producer price index (PPI) inflation in the second half of 2021 was 47.39 percent, therefore triggering an automatic increase in the fixed-amount Special Consumption Tax (SCT) for alcohol beverages, soft drinks, fruit juice, and tobacco products.

China is a leading beer market in terms of both production and consumption. However, in recent years China’s beer market has stagnated. Although U.S. beer accounts for a very small percentage of China’s imported beers, exports to China enjoy a good reputation.

On November 9, 2021, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued a directive clarifying that all imported consignments of alcoholic beverages bottled in origin and in bulk, containing more than ten percent alcohol with no expiry date will be issued a no-objection certificate (NOC) with a validity of 300 days.