India topples France as UK’s largest Scotch whisky market

 

London:  India has overtaken France to become the UK’s largest market of Scotch whisky in terms of volume with a 60 per cent hike in imports in 2022 over the previous year, according to the latest figures released by Scotland’s leading industry body.

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) revealed on Friday that India imported 219 million 70cl bottles of Scotch compared to France’s 205 million last year – representing growth of the Indian Scotch market of more than 200 per cent in the past decade.

As one of the key sectors of focus for the UK in the free trade agreement (FTA) talks with India, now in their seventh round of negotiations, SWA pointed out that the hike in volume still makes up only a fraction of the Indian whisky market due to high tariffs.