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Wine Vision Live News: China being held back by "profiteering" wine importers

Published:  19 November, 2013

11.30am: The Chinese wine market is being dangerously held back by "short term, profiteering" wine importers that are pushing vastly over priced wine in to the market and confusing consumers, according to leading Chinese players speaking at today's Wine Visionconference.

11.30am:

The Chinese wine market is being dangerously held back by "short term, profiteering" wine importers that are pushing vastly over priced wine in to the market and confusing consumers, according to leading Chinese players speaking at today's Wine Vision conference.

Ian Ford of Chinese wine importer, Summergate Fine Wines, said there was enormous potential for China to eventually have a "healthy", well educated market in wine, but it was being dangerously held back by "short term, profiteering" companies from both inside China and outside that consumers are having to navigate around so that they can get to real wine in real wine bottles at the right price.

"We are trying to build a wine culture in China but it is really hard," he stressed.

Don St Pierre Jnr of ASC Fine Wines agreed and said doing business in China was becoming increasingly difficult due to the large numbers of unprofessional importers in the country. It is estimated there are currently some 4,200 importers operating in China and the number has "exploded" in recent years, stressed St Pierre. It has resulted, he said, in "massive confusion in the market".

"It is a challenging envirnoment to find the right partner," said St Pierre.

"Most of the new players are unprofessional who are selling wine at price points that do not make sense."

He warned anyone looking to work in China to ensure they have trademarked their product in China or they would not only be open to fraud but would find it hard to do business there.

It was also hard to get the usual return on investments working in China and companies need to realise the complexities of the market.

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