Domestic, Foreign Wines to Face off after WTO entry

     Chinese and foreign brands of wine are expected to engage in fierce competition following the country 's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
        The latest issue of China's most authoritative news weekly, the Outlook, predicts that the wine contest will be one of the hottest to be staged in the world's potentially largest consumer market. 
        The first round of the wine competition began in 1996, and lasted three years. Finally, domestic brand names such as Zhangyu, Great Wall and Dynasty got the edge over their foreign rivals.
        The April 3 issue of the journal relates that from late 1996 the popularity of dry red wines has quickly spread all over China. At one time, the country boasted over 100 foreign brands of such wines.
        "But they didn't seem to realize the importance of the price factor in their marketing in China," the magazine says. For instance, a bottle of foreign red wine was usually priced at over a 100 yuan (about 12 US dollars), and some at even over 1,000 yuan. The high prices proved to a hurdle to their market expansion. 
        However, the fatal strike against foreign brands came not from their high prices but from their quality, according to an article in the Outlook. 
        For instance, a 1998 sampling of 40domestic and foreign brands showed that 20 of them were substandard, of which 17were from outside the country. 
        Another blow for the foreign brands came in 1999, when a popular TV show asked a group of ordinary Chinese consumers to compare domestic and foreign brands.
        Without the brand names on the wine bottles, most of the respondents indicated that they favored Chinese-made wines, which they said had a more delicate taste.
       A noted wine connoisseur noted at the time that few high-grade foreign wines had entered China and that foreign wines would go bad if they had not been properly stored during their months of journey to China.
       On the other hand, the domestic wine brands showed strong competitiveness in both their quality and prices, the magazine says.
       High-quality Chinese brands emerged victorious from the three-year contest. A national market survey done in June 1999 showed that home-made brands occupied about 80 percent of the Chinese market, with Zhangyu at 22.21 percent, Great Wall at 16.60 percent and    Dynasty at 12.18 percent.
       However, the magazine warns, after China enters the WTO the real test will come for Chinese wines.                                                                                         

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