--FILE--canettes de bière neige de China Resources Snow Breweries Ltd. (CR) de la neige, une joint-venture entre SABMiller et China Resources Entreprises, sont pour
--FILE--Cans of Snow beer of China Resources Snow Breweries Ltd. (CR Snow), a joint venture between SABMiller and China Resources Enterprises, are for sale in a supermarket in Nantong city, east China's Jiangsu province, 6 April 2014. This has been a headline year for China's beer market ª but for the wrong reasons. Beer production has fallen for the first time in two decades, a casualty of changing drinking habits. Now Chinese beer is in the headlines again, as Anheuser-Busch InBev ponders one of the biggest brewery deals of all time, a takeover of SABMiller, at a time when both brewers have a leading position in the Chinese market. Like many consumer markets in China, beer has been hit by the moderating pace of economic growth, and the rising affluence and sophistication of Chinese consumers ª only more so. Last year China's beer production by volume, at 49bn litres, fell nearly 3 per cent for the first time in 24 years, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics. "Chinese beer per capita consumption has reached 34.2 litres, slightly over the world's per capita of 33 litres, " says the US Department of Agriculture in a recent report, which concludes that "the market for domestic mass-production beer is becoming saturated". "There isn't much growth in mass-market beers because it's a cheap beverage and as people's disposable income grows they are trying other options, like wine, whisky or craft beers, " says James Roy, retail analyst at China Market Research in Shanghai. So mass-market beers are languishing, with production volumes at Chinese brewers falling 6 per cent in the first half of this year, according to BNP Paribas. High quality global journalism requires investment.
