China Asia’s ‘biggest consumer of Belgian beer’

A 140% increase in Belgian beer exports to China in 2014 has signalled this market’s “real potential for growth”, according to the President of the Federation of Belgian Brewers.

China imported more Belgian beers than Japan in 2014 making it Asia’s largest consumer of Belgian beers, according to Jean-Lius Van de Perre, the President of the Federation of Belgian Brewers.

Speaking to China’s news agency, Xinhua, Van de Perre said that the export of Belgian beers to China was 162,751 hectoliters (hl) in 2014, an increase of 140 per cent over the previous year (69,456 hl) and 850 per cent compared to 2008 (17,138 hl).

The most popular brands of Belgian beer in China are Stella Artois, Leffe, Hoegaarden, Duvel.

Two Chinese beer brands, Harbin and Sedrin, have also been released by the Belgian beer group Anheuser-Busch InBev, said Van de Perre and the Chinese beer market presents a “great potential for growth” due to its large population and tradition of beer drinking.

China itself is going through a downturn in its own production of beer but its rapidly growing middle class who are interested in tasting foreign beers has been attributed to growing the Asia beer market to $202bn by 2020.