Vinitaly International Wine & Spirits Exhibition grows up in China
VeronaFiere promotes Italian wine in China with the tenth edition of Vinitaly China, the reference international event for Italian wine abroad, touring 19-22 November and involving around 100 Italian companies interested in cities offering high consumption potential: Peking, Shanghai and Macao. These three cities, in short, are achieving the highest growth rates in wine consumption world-wide (in Peking, consumption increased by 50% in 2007 alone) and will grow until 2013 by 13% / year.
Vinitaly China equally involves participation of the Italian Wine Union with President Andrea Sartori for the EU Project titled "The next: quality experience" and Unaprol with Portfoil, the catalogue of the best Italian extra virgin olive oils.
"This edition of Vinitaly China," said Camillo Cametti, the Director of VeronaFiere for international activities, during the inauguration of the first day of work, "celebrates its tenth anniversary and continues its efforts to promote Italian wine. There are good prospects since imports from Italy are still growing - as demonstrated by data for the first eight months of the year published yesterday by ISTAT that indicate almost 51 thousand hectolitres worth more than 9.5 million euro against less than 41 thousand hectolitres and 8.4 million euro in the same period 2007. These increases equal 24.4% in quantity and 13.1% in value."
"This is why," said Giovanni Mantovani, Director General of VeronaFiere, "we are continually upgrading Vinitaly operations in this country, culminating this year with the addition of the Macao stop-off, thereby offering Italian producers an important chance in a potentially very interesting consumption market."
The position of Italian wine in this country was undoubtedly improved by the review of duties on wine in Hong Kong and Macao, whereby the final cost of bottles for consumers is now 20-30% lower. Inasmuch, if a bottle with an initial value of 10 US dollars was formerly sold in Hong Kong with a retail price of 31 dollars, today - following the abolition of import duties - the same bottle costs less than 23 dollars. The objective for Italian wine companies is to create market space even in the city generally considered to be the Las Vegas of the Orient. This promising market is today dominated by France and Portugal.
Thanks to this new economic policy of opening towards international markets, in the first 5 months of 2008 alone China imported about 850 thousand hectolitres of wine with an increase of 10.3% compared to the same period in 2007, with a significant increase also in terms of value equal to 49% for a total of 310 million dollars.
In this scenario, Italy ranks sixth as an exporter to China behind France, Australia, the United States, Chile and Spain but can certainly win new positions compared to its competitors. Most appeal focuses on high band wines, to the extent that they are expected to cover half the total of wine imports by 2010.
Given the sheer size of China, Peking and Shanghai are the most promising realities. The growth of the wine market in Peking in recent years has been extremely rapid - in 2007 alone it leaped forwards by 50% - and the flywheel effect - not the least thanks to the Olympic Games - will continue over the next few years. This year, the offering of imported high band wines was enhanced by so many top labels that the main hotels have invested in personnel training to ensure appropriate "wine skills". Shanghai is in the slipstream of Peking: here, imports of Italian wine, since 2003, have grown beyond comparison in other Chinese cities. Such accelerated growth is equally stimulated by initiatives such as Vinitaly China ensuring international promotion of the Italian wine-style: the most successful kind of action in terms of penetration into the Chinese market and returns through sales are those focusing on improving wine awareness among potential consumers.
This approach is supported by the Italian Ambassador to China, Riccardo Sessa, who highlighted how "Italian wine and food are the flagships of Italian exports to China but also the products which arouse the most interest and appeal among local consumers".
"Chinese cuisine," said Walter Brunello, President of Buonitalia Spa," in overall terms involves so many regional differences that the huge variety of Italian wines can potentially be matched with all these different tastes and preferences. Our objective," Brunello explained, "is to match our wines with Chinese cuisine in the best possible and most extensive manner. We must stimulate the interest of Chinese consumers, even to the point of encouraging them to visit wine production centres in Italy itself."
Territorial promotion is precisely the objective of Erminia Perbellini, the Councillor for Culture and Tourism of Verona City Council involved in a trade mission to China with Vinitaly. "Verona City Council," she said, "will support VeronaFiere in all its international initiatives to promote all the cultural and tourism appeal of our territory, such as the events organised by Verona Arena Foundation and the Roman Theatre."