China’s massive market means big business for baijiu and Kweichow Moutai. The belt and road may take them even further
- With China sending its money, workers and influence abroad, the baijiu brands that have benefited from its massive market alone may get yet another big boost
I can safely bet that there is not a single authentic “China hand”, or credible China business expert, who has not at some point come face to face with “trial by Mao-tai” – that gruelling 15-course banquet with your hosts calling for at least one “gan bei” toast to mark each course.
My own personal record was among two rambunctious tables of coal mining bosses from northern Anhui, who would have put to shame the fieriest of Yorkshire miners. I counted a total of 52 toasts, at heaven knows what cost to my liver. Thank goodness the glasses were small.
Nor is it surprising that it ranks up alongside China’s biggest and most successful companies, with a market capitalisation of over 1.2 trillion yuan. That is not quite up there with Alphabet, Amazon, Tencent or Alibaba, but puts it close alongside PetroChina or UK-listed HSBC. And it leaves Diageo, one of the West’s leading liquor groups, in the dust.
It is a measure of our general level of ignorance of China that most readers will never have heard of Kweichow Moutai, and at the same time a measure of China’s “law of large numbers” that, in spite of our ignorance, the country is populated by literally thousands of companies that rank among the world’s largest and most profitable.
