Brewery seeks growth in B&R markets

Zhujiang Brewery Co Ltd, one of the major beer producers in China, is expecting the Belt and Road Initiative to help further expand its offshore sales in the coming year.

Chen Xuande, general manager assistant of Zhujiang Brewery, said overseas expansion has great potential for the company, as foreign sales now represent only about 5 percent of the total sales volume.

Yu Hong, a manager in charge of overseas sales, said her company will give its top priorities to develop the Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Russia markets in 2018.

"To achieve the goals, the company is now studying and producing the beers with the different flavors which are popular in these foreign countries and regions," Yu said.

In the previous years, the company has participated a series of promotion activities organized by relevant government departments in Belt and Road-related countries and regions to promote its brands and products, she said.

"The country's Belt and Road Initiative, which helps boost Sino-foreign cooperation and cultural exchanges, will certainly become a big push for increasing our presence in the world market in the years to come," she said.

Yu added that expanding beer sales abroad is a long-term task for Chinese companies, as beer was originally considered an exotic product, and it took time for foreigners to recognize the high quality of Chinese beers.

"But our production equipment and technologies have reached the advanced standard of the world while the quality of our products has been able to compete with many world brand name beers," she said.

The company, which is a Shenzhen Stock Exchanges-listed company, reached a sales volume of more than 4 billion yuan ($615 million) last year.

And the company had reached last year's total expected volume in the first 10 months.

The company's beers have now been exported to more than 40 nations and regions worldwide.