China’s wine production down for 5th year

China’s wine production dropped for the fifth year in a row to a new low of 10 million hectolitres in 2017, down by 5.25% from 2016’s 11.37 million hectolitres.

Chinese character for alcohol

According to the latest figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the domestic wine production drop is also coupled with sales decline. Total revenues generated from wine sales plummeted 9% year-on-year to RMB 42.137 billion (US$6.67 billion).

China has the world’s second largest area under vine after Spain, and ahead of France and Italy, according to QIV.

But the country only ranked as the world’s 6th biggest wine producer in 2016.

Meanwhile, imported wine volumes and consumption continues to grow. The country imported US$2.714 billion worth of wine, representing a year-on-year growth of 17.58%.

Baijiu, the fiery, sorghum-based Chinese liquor, enjoyed the highest growth rate among all categories.

Its production volume rose by 6.86% to 119.8 million hectolitres and its sales revenue climbed by 14.42% to RMB 565.4 billion (US$89.5 billion) compared with 2016, signalling consumer’s strong demand for the liquor despite price hikes in 2017.

Net profit alone from Baijiu amounted to RMB 102.8 billion (US$16.2 billion), which is a year-on-year increase of 35.79%.

Beer production in the country saw a slight drop of 0.66% to 440.1 million hectolitres last year, while the volume of imported beer grew by 10.8% to 7.162 million hectolitres.