F REIGN TRADE - 中国国际贸易促进委员会

Industrial WatchCONSUMERChina’s wine investment market cools downIndustrial WatchChina, the world’s fifth largest wine consumer, has shownthe sign of a cooling wine market, the Oriental MorningPost reported on May 14.Shanghai, China’s main distribution center for importedwines, have seen declining wine imports for five consecutivemonths, Xinhua News Agency reported.The Shanghai Customs District imported 29.63 millionliters of wine in the first quarter of this year, and the averageprice dropped to $9.8 per liter. March imports were 7.35 millionliters, a month-on-moth decrease of 11.3 percent accordingto the Xinhua report.By contrast, in the second half of last year, the domesticwine market was extremely hot, and the average price reached$11.6 per liter.According to industry insiders, China’s wine market isreturning to rational, said the Oriental Morning Post report.Affected by the cooling high-end wine investment market,prices of products from Chateau Lafite Rothschild, a topnotchFrench vineyard plummeted. As of May 8, the bondedprice of a 2008 Lafite product tumbled 53.4 percent to 7,230yuan ($1,143.79) from 15,500 yuan and the bonded price of a2004 Lafite product fell to 2,850 yuan from 4,900 yuan.The report also quoted Wang Jiaqi, business developmentdirector of Shanghai Wine Exchange, as saying that beforeFebruary 2011, prices of Lafite products had been skyrocketing,with buyers from China being an important force for itsboom.According to previously published data from the FrenchBordeaux Wine Industry Associations in 2010, China replacedthe United Kingdom and Germany for the first time to becomethe largest importer of Bordeaux wine in 2010.CommentChina’s booming wine market is returningto rational after the marketfrenzy.CommentChina’s e-shopping market to top world in 2013The transaction size of China’s online shoppingmarket will surpass Japan in 2012, and exceedthe United States by 2013, becoming the world’slargest online trading market, reported EconomicInformation Daily on May 17.The report cited the China Business DevelopmentReport Forecast (2011-2012) released by theNational Academy of Economic Strategy of ChineseAcademy of Social Sciences (CASS).The report noted that even if China becomes theworld’s largest online trading market in the next year, thethriving online shopping market is not enough to cover up problems in the generalChinese circulation industry.According to Jing Linbo, vice-president of the National Academy of EconomicStrategy of CASS, the fundamental reason lies in unclear positioning ofChina’s circulation industry.He stated that other problems include market segmentation, enterprisesscattered with low concentration, a less competitive market, a lack of theoreticalresearch to guide the practice, and the need for improvement of personneltraining.Though the online shopping market is thriving inChina, it has to confront with many problems, includethose in the circulation industry.CommentChina’s online third-partypayment booms in Q1China’s online third-party paymentmarket reached 758.3 billion yuan($120.49 billion) in the first quarter of2012, a major tech and Internet informationprovider was quoted as saying by Xinhuaon May 7.The figure represents a 90.9 percentyear-on-year increase, and 2.7 percentincrease compared to the last quarter of2011, according to the results of a seasonalsurvey of China’s online third-party paymentmarket conducted by Analysys International.The quarter-on-quarter decline in theindustry’s growth rate was due to the holidayseason and the overdrawn consumingability in the previous year-end sales promotion,said Zhang Meng, an analyst withthe firm.The burgeoning onlineshopping drivesthe growth of thirdpartypayment.38