by Dana Halawi BEIRUT (Xinhua) — Winemakers in Lebanon have become aware about the importance of sending their products to the Chinese market because of its high demand for wine. Around 9 million bottles of wine are produced yearly in Lebanon with 45 percent exported to foreign markets. The annual production of the Lebanese wine industry is equal to the wine sales in one week in China, according to Eliana Ibrahim, president of the China Arab Association for Promoting Cultural and Commercial Exchange.
Although Lebanon’s export of wine to China has not been high so far, Lebanese winemakers have started looking for ways to enter the Chinese market. “Around 3 to 4 percent of our production goes to China every year while we have been working on this market for around 12 years,” Gaston Hochar, co-owner of Lebanese winery Chateau Musar, told Xinhua. Hochar said that the winery’s exports to China have increased since he has started dealing with a new distributor in China. “Ever since then, our exports have started increasing,” he said. Hochar added that exporting to China is not free from challenges. The country requests a lot of information about the company’s products and requires bottles’ labels to be translated into Chinese, he explained. “We are coping with these so far and we travel twice a year to China to promote our products,” he said.