China begins selling Georgian wine online

People in China with a taste for Georgian wine can buy their favourite tipple from a number of new Georgian Wine Houses but soon consumers will be able to go online to buy their favourite drink.

A special platform named E-SilkRoad will launch online where traditional Georgian wine will be sold in China.

The first Georgian wine company to sell its wine on the E-SilkRoad website will be Dugladze Wine Company, which will initially export 300,000 bottles of wine for online purchase.

Today Georgia’s Economy Minister Dimitry Kumsishvili and officials from Dugladze Wine Company signed corresponding agreements in China’s biggest city Shanghai.

The agreement signing ceremony was held at a special event named The Summer of Georgian Wine.

The idea to make Georgian wine available online was supported by the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce, which is an international non-governmental organisation that aimed to promote the renaissance of the Silk Road and enable business participation in the investment and trade opportunities it offered.

The idea to make Georgian wine available online was supported by the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce. Photo by Georgia's Ministry of Economy.

Meanwhile, another agreement was also signed today between Georgia and China that outlined the creation of a Georgian Wine National Corner, which will open at the wine centre in Shanghai’s free economic zone.

The Georgian National Wine Agency will be allocated a space measuring about 200 m2 for three years to present Georgian wine.

In recent months Georgia has focused on expanding its wine exports to China and has opened several Wine Houses to raise awareness of Georgian wine.

Thanks to this and other initiatives China is now a major importer of Georgian wine.

This year China moved from fourth to third place as the largest importer of Georgian wine, following Russia and Ukraine

Between January and June 2016 more than 1.9 million bottles of Georgian wine was exported to China, latest figures showed. This was a 148 percent increase than the same time in 2015.

Last year Georgia exported 2,672,154 bottles of wine to China - 122 percent more year-on-year.