From: say@monashee.sfu.ca (Daniel Say)
Subject: Chinese beer festival
Summary: Chinese Beer festival (news clip)
Keywords: Chinese, beer, China, Beijing, business
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 02:58:52 GMT


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              * * *  C h i n a   N e w s   D i g e s t  * * *

                              (News Global)

                        Sunday, September 27, 1992
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4. China: Last Frontier for Saturated Beer Market .......................54
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From: A CND Reader
Source: Reuter, 9/24/92
By: Janet Snyder

BEIJING -- It might not be the Munich Oktoberfest, but Beijing is holding
its first beer festival to encourage a boom in sales in what foreign brewers
see as the market's last frontier.

The city has built sidewalk cafes and trellised beer gardens as part of the
festival, which runs from September 20 to October 4.

Foreign brewers and farmers are smacking their lips at the new market.

Brewers in the United States and Europe, whose home markets are saturated,
look eagerly to the huge potential of the world's most populous country.
For barley farmers in Australia, Canada and the United States, China is a
giant market for barley malt, a basic beer ingredient.

China is expected to buy almost a million tonnes of the malt this year, said
Jeff Brown, Beijing representative of the U.S. Feed Grains Council.

In the 13 years since Beijing began economic reforms, the beer industry has
seen explosive growth of more than 1000 per cent, Brown said.

In 1979, total beer output was 700,000 tonnes. Last year it reached 8.13
million tonnes.

China is now the world's third largest beer brewing nation, after the United
States and Germany. The United States last year produced 23 million tonnes,
Brown said.

But unlike the United States and Germany, whose beer markets are mature and
consumption growths flat or declining, China has one of the fastest growing
markets in the world, he said.

American per capita beer consumption is about 80 litres (21 gallons) a year,
while Germany's is a hefty 160 litres (42 gallons).

China's consumption is a tiny eight litres (two gallons) a year -- but
growing by about 10 to 15 per cent annually. "It was virtually zero 10 years
ago," Brown notes. "Beer consumption in China has no place to go but up."
Domestic brewers have seen sales grow 20 per cent so far this year over
1991, a Beijing Beer Festival press release says.

Young people find beer a good substitute for the 100-proof hard liquor
called "baijiu" traditionally favoured by their elders.

"The general impression among younger Chinese is that compared with baijiu,
beer is good for you," Brown said.

It's also much cheaper than hard liquor. A bottle of local beer costs one
or two yuan (20 to 40 cents) over a shop counter against 30 to 100 yuan
($6 to 20) for a bottle of baijiu.

Foreign brands have already begun brewing in China under licence.

One of the most recent newcomers to the country is Becks of Germany, whose
beer was first made under licence here in April.