French wine sets a new base in Wuhan

Wuhan is considered to be the new base of French wine in China, which is booset by the successfully held Festival des vins de Bordeaux et d’Aquitaine in Nov, 2011. And this is approved by the Objectif Chine conference that is held this week.

It is no secret that China wine market grows like a skyrocket. The market is no long restrained in few big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. China west and central regions gets more and more development thanks to favored policies by Central Government. On Jan 30, in Villenave-d’Ornon—a city near Bordeaux, a conference on the subject is organized by Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin (ISVV). Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine, Agence Aquitaine de Promotion Agroalimentaire (AAPrA) and Chambre d’Agriculture de la Gironde invites many experts from the field to attend the conference, especially two experts from Ubifrance : Bertrand Quevremont and Philippe Autier，as well as Ms Christelle Chêne from AAPrA.
Conference’s purpose is to provide opportunity for French grape growers, vintners and exporters learn more about current circumstance of the opening of Chinese marketing, especially the central market

According to data provided by experts of Ubifrance, 8 million Chinese people grow the habit of drinking wine, and this figure presents only 5-10% of the country’s consumption market of alcohol drinks. Chinese drinking habit is changing, from high-degree-alcohol distilled spirits to the more health wines. Middle class and college students become the important market segments. Avarage income, saving rate and investment rate of these two groups are increasing. These development trends favor especially France, whose wine is no doubt taking up the biggest share of the market among all other countries. Some people still think they buy wine for giving it as a gift, but this phenomera is also changing very soon.

Wuhan is located in the central part of China, as a very important hinge connecting Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Chongqing. The city has population of 9 million people; the economy grows by 15% each year. Retail business double in sales for each five years .