Sales surge a good excuse for a drink and a toast
Updated: 2016-01-02 08:19
By Liu Zhihua(China Daily)
|
|||||||||
A Chinese woman at a tasting event. [Photo provided to China Daily] |
As the catering industry laps up what appears to be the entree in an upswing in business for which it has had a growing appetite for many months, one sign that this is no flash in the pan is surging sales of liquors.
Along with turnover in upmarket restaurants, sales of liquor have been particularly hard hit since the central government's austerity campaign began three years ago, but one of the standard bearers of high-end liquors, Cognac, has produced spectacular results this year.
Shipments of Cognac to China jumped 42 percent in the first nine months of the year, the industry association, the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac says.
But the good news for the liquor industry does not end there. The Scotch Whisky Association has also been trumpeting the fact that imports to China in the first half of this year rose 30 percent compared with the corresponding period last year, to 7 million bottles. Those sales were worth 22 million pounds ($32.7 million), almost 46 percent more than in 2014.
It is not only liquor sales that have been giving the industry reason for festive-season cheer. In October a little more than 32 million liters of wine were imported into the country, 20.6 percent more than in October last year, and whose value was nearly 35 percent higher than in 2014, the commercial think tank Grandview says.
Frederic Noyere, managing director of LVMH-Moet Hennessy Diageo China, says the Chinese government's drive against corruption has served to bring normality to the liquor market, and that has been good for the industry.
Tremendous potential
China, as the world's second-largest economy, continues to hold tremendous potential for Cognac, he says, particularly because of the emergence of the middle and upper-middle classes.
"China remains a fantastic market in terms of opportunity, given its size, its growth, its population, its wealth, and given the fact that Chinese are very fond of high-quality products."
Hennessy accounts for 45 percent of the Cognac market worldwide, and China is the No 2 market for Hennessy in value after the United States, and for a brief period in 2011 and 2012 held the top spot.
- Top planner targets 40% cut in PM2.5 for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster
- Yearender: Predictions for 2016 through 20 questions
- Asia's largest underground railway station opens in Shenzhen
- Shanghai bans drug-using actors, drivers
- Clamping down to clean up the air
- Yearender: Ten most talked-about newsmakers in 2015
- Over 1 million refugees have fled to Europe by sea in 2015: UN
- Turbulence injures multiple Air Canada passengers, diverts flight
- NASA releases stunning images of our planet from space station
- US-led air strikes kill IS leaders linked to Paris attacks
- DPRK senior party official Kim Yang Gon killed in car accident
- Former Israeli PM Olmert's jail term cut, cleared of main charge
- Yearender: China's proposals on world's biggest issues
- NASA reveals entire alphabet but F in satellite images
- Yearender: Five major sporting rivalries during 2015
- China counts down to the New Year
- Asia's largest underground railway station opens in Shenzhen
- Yearender: Predictions for 2016 through 20 questions
- World's first high-speed train line circling an island opens in Hainan
- 'Internet Plus' changes people's lifestyles in China
Most Viewed
Editor's Picks
8 highlights about V-day Parade |
Glimpses of Tibet: Plateaus, people and faith |
Chinese entrepreneurs remain optimistic despite economic downfall |
50th anniversary of Tibet autonomous region |
Tianjin explosions: Deaths, destruction and bravery |
Cinemas enjoy strong first half |
Today's Top News
Shooting rampage at US social services agency leaves 14 dead
Chinese bargain hunters are changing the retail game
Chinese president arrives in Turkey for G20 summit
Islamic State claims responsibility for Paris attacks
Obama, Netanyahu at White House seek to mend US-Israel ties
China, not Canada, is top US trade partner
Tu first Chinese to win Nobel Prize in Medicine
Huntsman says Sino-US relationship needs common goals
US Weekly
Geared to go |
The place to be |