Category: China

Scottish Beers Coming to China

A group of Scottish beer producers have set their sites on China, Hong Kong and Dubai. the Inveralmond Brewery in Perth and the Eden Mill Distillery and Brewery at Guardbridge have benefited from the Craft Beer Clan efforts.

As Eden Mill owner Paul Miller said, “This market has been fantastically good for us. The latest order has been our third to China through Craft Beer Clan in the last year. We are excited about the Chinese market which has a lot of potential for further growth for our brewery.”

The Craft Beer Clan is the international division of Glasgow-based food and drink wholesaler JW Filshill. Their goal is to help Scottish craft brewers and distillers enter the Asia Pacific region. It is currently working with 22 brewers and four craft distillers across Scotland. They have also brokered deals with importers in Taiwan and secured orders in Thailand and Panama.

As Chris Miller of JW Filshill International said, “We attended the key whiskey exhibition in Beijing and Shanghai in August with the Single Malt Club, our distributor in China. The Chinese market is key to our international growth as consumers, they are hugely interested in Scotland and have a particular appetite for Scotch whiskey as well as premium food and drink products.

 

Uber Battles it out in China

Uber is now hoping to raise $2.5bn for its China unit. This would double the amount the company has already raised.  They are locked, at the moment, in a fierce fight with their Chinese rival, Didi Kuaidi. They have already raised $3bn in a round that closed recently. The race for the market between the two companies will be determined by who can raise the most money. Uber’s Chinese investors include Baidu, while Didi’s include Tencent and Alibaba.
Uber has said it plans to invest $1bn this year in China. Chief Executive Travis Kalanick described it as “one of the largest untapped opportunities for Uber, potentially larger than the US”.

Uber just announced a new carpooling service in Chengdu, Southwest China. This is the first time that they have launched a brand new service outside of the US. The service is being called “UberCommute” and it will enable long-haul commuters to pick up other passengers for a free who are going in the same direction.

 

 

China Real Estate Picking Up…But Only in Larger Cities

China’s metropolitan areas have witnessed a financial and property revival while the recovery in smaller cities has been much slower. The home sales volume in tier-1 cities surged 42.9% in teh first half of this year from last year. For tier-2 cities the uptick was 16.9% and for tier-3 cities there was a fall of 2.9%.

The recovery for the housing market in tier-3 and tier-4 cities is weighted down by high inventories, according to Zhang Dawei, chief analyst at Centaline.

China reduced the down payment levels for second-home buyers in March. It is now 40%, rather than the 60-70% that was previously required. They also exempted business tax for sales of homes that are purchased over two years ago.

Read the whole article to see more of the nuance of the issue.

Uber Moves Into Chinese Market

Uber has recently struck a deal with China Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings. This is a Chinese luxury auto dealer. Together, they plan to provide discounts and financing for drivers of Uber cars. Yongda will provide Uber’s partners with discounts on new car purchases, financing and after-sale services.

Uber has faced a great deal of pressure in its attempts to expand into the Chinese market. Time will tell how they do trying to squeeze into the market. To read more about this ventu, see the full article.

Optimism for Asia Pacific Investments

Datastat - Modification from wikipedia
Datastat – Modification from Wikipedia

Optimism is rising for making investments into the Asia Pacific region. There is greater confidence among executives in the region, a large percentage of whom, according to a PwC report believe that in the next 12 months there will be substantial growth. Given that it has risen 10 points from 2012 and four from 2013, this is a good sign.

However, growth has not been encountered all that much in China. So will this impact the rest of the Asia Pacific region? According to the study, 67 percent of executives are anticipating that they will make large investments in the APEC region over the next year. And they will be doing this within each of the 21 member economies. As well, China is actually up there as one of the most popular places for such investments.

If that is the case, how do investors justify these plans if China’s economy is not encountering growth? A couple of weeks ago, Bob Davis at ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ wrote that “we are witnessing the end of the Chinese economic miracle.”

However, just recently China started admitting its issues – which is a huge deal vis-à-vis solving them.   It announced a drop in interest rates which will once again begin to make the region more attractive to outside investors.

Still, there is much more to be done. The facts are that the country’s manufacturing sector is facing challenging overcapacity, resulting in a drop in prices. As well, there was an increase of GDP in the third quarter by 7.3 percent. These issues have to be addressed as well as interest rates, if China is going to have a chance of getting back in the foreign investment game.