Imported wine popular during Chinese New Year 進口葡萄酒節前旺銷

Chinese consumers flock to buy wine and food imports ahead of Spring Festival

A customer checks imported wine at Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center on January 15. Photo: Yang Hui/GT

"It's my second time here. I'm buying imported wines because Spring Festival is coming up," a customer surnamed Wang told the Global Times in a Shanghai supermarket as she browsed the wine shelves.

Ahead of the Spring Festival, Chinese people are flocking to supermarkets and specialty stores to buy delicacies for the festival.

At Hongqiao Import Commodity Exhibition and Trading Center, a center for imported goods in Shanghai, customers were jostling each other as they tried to find the best deals.

Zhu Zhenhua, a retiree with a full trolley, showed off what he had bought: imported olive oil, wine from Spain, rice from Japan and beef from Australia.

"I expect to spend 1,000 yuan ($145) on imported food for the Spring Festival," Zhu said, adding that he comes once a month to buy imported food.

Imported red wine and snacks are most popular products, Xiao Jianwen, who works at the trading center told the Global Times on Sunday.

"Italian and French red wines are most popular. We've sold tens of thousands of bottles from these two countries in a month," he said.

The center has had a month-long sale on certain imported products from December 23 to January 23.

The center says that as well as wine, red shrimps from Argentina and white shrimps from Ecuador are the biggest sellers.

As an extension of the China International Import Expo (CIIE), the center positioned itself as the biggest distribution center for imported products in the world that integrates display, commodity trading, logistics storage and customs clearance services.

This center was established after the first CIIE in 2018 to expand the spillover effect of the CIIE and stimulate off-site exhibition with increased opportunities for public participation, Mao Xufei, an employee with the operation department told the Global Times.

The imported food hall now boasts 8,000 products, up from 1,000 a year ago.

Sales of imported food have boomed in the past two years as demand for imported food picked up, Xiao said.

"This year's sales of imported food are much better than last year. The same time last year, the daily sales volume was just thousands of yuan, but now it has soared up to 600,000 yuan a day," he said.

"Last year we had imported food from 30 countries and regions. Now it's 70. Brands from Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea get the most interest from the Chinese market," he said.

As China pushes to upgrade consumption, tastes have changed, with greater demand for higher-quality imported foods.

A prosperity index released by UK think tank Legatum Institute, shows living standards of Chinese people is improving rapidly. The Chinese mainland shot up from 82nd place in 2018 to 57th place in 2019, according to the Legatum Prosperity Index, which offers a unique insight into how prosperity is forming and changing across the world, using indicators that include wealth, economic growth, education, health, personal well-being and quality of life.

In 2018, the volume of China's imported food grew rapidly, with total imports value reaching $73.569 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.33 percent, according to the 2019 China Import Food Industry Report.

China imports foodstuffs and beverages from 185 countries and regions. The import value of seafood, meat and dairy products has surpassed the tens of billions of dollars, the report said.

The growth comes as a result of tariff cuts, swifter customs clearance and rising demand from Chinese consumers, according to experts.

"The reduction in tariffs is juxtaposed with the growth of domestic consumption power, which together contribute to the growth in imported products," Huang Jianzhong, a professor with Shanghai University of International Business and Economics told the Global Times on Sunday.

"There were two major rounds of tariff cuts in July and November 2019 which also covered the food sector," he said.

He predicted that imported wine, nuts and chocolate will lead domestic consumption in 2020.

Data released by the General Administration of Customs on January 13 showed that in December 2019, the overall customs clearance time for imports was 36.7 hours, a reduction of 62.3 percent from 2017.

Though the main consumption of imported food is still in first-tier cities, second- and third-tier cities are swiftly catching up, Huang added.

According to Xiao, most of their customers are from Shanghai with a 20 percent coming from other provinces nearby.

"We are now establishing a branch in Chaohu, Anhui Province as demand picks up," he said.

進口葡萄酒節前旺銷

春節前，不少中國消費者來到虹橋品匯(虹橋進口商品展示交易中心)采購進口葡萄酒和食品。

一位正在瀏覽葡萄酒貨架的王姓顧客對記者說：“這是我第二次來這里。春節快到了，我打算買點進口葡萄酒。”

退休人士朱振華(音)的手推車里堆滿了進口橄欖油、西班牙葡萄酒、日本大米和澳大利亞牛肉。“我預計春節期間要在進口食品上花費1000元(合145美元)，”他補充說，他每月都會到這里采購一次進口食品。

虹橋品匯的工作人員肖建文(音)表示，進口葡萄酒和零食是最受歡迎的產品。“意大利和法國葡萄酒最受歡迎。最近一個月，我們售出了數萬瓶這兩個國家的葡萄酒。”

從2019年12月23日至2020年1月23日，該中心對部分進口商品進行了為期一個月的促銷。

作為中國國際進口博覽會(CIIE)的延伸，該中心將自身定位為全球最大的進口產品分銷中心，集展示、商品交易、物流存儲和清關服務于一體。該中心是在2018年第一屆CIIE之后成立的，進口食品館現在擁有8,000種產品，而一年前為1,000種。

隨著中國致力于提升消費水平，消費者口味發生了改變，對更高品質進口食品的需求也越來越大。

英國智庫列格坦研究所發布的繁榮指數顯示，中國人的生活水平正在迅速提高，中國大陸的繁榮指數從2018年的第82位躍升至2019年的第57位。