Australia, one of the key wine exporters in the world, exported a record 738 million tones of wine in the 2005-06 year ending June.

The figure represents a 12 percent increase over the previous year, said the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation in a report released on Friday.

China and Sweden were the key contributors to the growth, boosting the value of Australia's wine exports to 2.8 billion dollars (2.09 billion U.S. dollars).

Sweden took 50 million dollar (37.4 million U.S. dollars) worth of Australian wines in the last financial year, a rise of 13 million dollars (9.7 million U.S. dollars) from the previous financial year.

China bought 21 million dollars (15.7 million U.S. dollars) of Australian wine, up 11 million dollars (8.2 million U.S. dollars) from the 2004-05 financial year.

"Sweden is the number one market for Australian soft-pack shipments" and "China is an emerging wine market," the corporation 's senior analyst Peter Bailey said in the report.

The United Kingdom was still the largest importer taking 960 million dollar (718.3 million U.S. dollars) worth of Australian wine, followed by the United States (902 million dollars, or 674,9 million U.S. dollars) and Canada (249 million dollars, or 186.3 million U.S. dollars ).

"The rate of volume growth in 2005-06 was creditable given the growing volume base for Australian wine shipments, the increased global competition and more difficult trading conditions," Bailey said.

Source: Xinhua