Asia's largest wine, spirits exhibition kicks off in HK

The Fifth Vinexpo Asia-Pacific, the largest international wine and spirits exhibition in Asia- Pacific, opened in Hong Kong Tuesday, in the hope of cashing in onthe booming Asian markets.

The exhibition will be held from Tuesday to Thursday. Hong Kong,with its strategic position at the center of a booming wine consuming region, was chosen to host the 2008 Vinexpo Asia-Pacific again after a successful staging of the 2006 event.

The exhibition will bring together 692 exhibitors from 32 countries and regions, including France, Italy, Spain, China and the United States, as well as 7,500 professional visitors from 18 Asian countries and regions.

France, the leading supplier of Asian countries with a 34 percent market share in Japan and China, confirms its position as a main exporter to Asia at the exhibition.

Asia was chosen to stage Vinexpo because of the promising opportunities it offers the wine and spirits market.

The market studies conducted by Vinexpo and the IWSR show that Asia is clearly a market of future importance for the whole industry. The consumption of still and sparkling wines in Asia will have grown by 79.3 percent between 2002 and 2011. China is the leading wine-drinking nation in Asia by volume and Japan the leading Asian consumer in terms of value. Having drunk 1.04 billion 9-liter cases of spirits in 2006, Asia is the largest spirits consuming region in the world, accounting for 47 percent of total world volumes.