Wine is big business in the Asia-Pacific region as Hong Kong has become the principal trading centre for fine wines in the world.
The fourth Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Fair has grown this year to include more than 930 exhibitors from 37 countries and regions.
Exhibition groups are being sent by 19 countries, while exhibitors from France and Spain total more than 250. Countries exhibiting for the first time include Georgia, Israel, Latvia, Malta, Slovakia and Sweden.
Asia's biggest wine event has grown in terms of exhibitor numbers by 37 per cent from last year.
The growth of the fair directly reflects that of the city's booming wine trade, according to Benjamin Chau, deputy executive director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, which organises the event.
'In 2008 wine imports to Hong Kong only amounted to HK$2.9 billion, but by 2010 this had reached HK$7 billion, a growth of more than 140 per cent in the three-year span. For the first eight months of this year, wine imports amounted to HK$6.7 billion, an increase of 65 per cent compared with the same period last year,' says Chau.