CRI听力: Ningxia Seeks International Cooperation to Upgrade Wine Production

Northwestern China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is emerging as one of the country's leading grape wine producers. Although dubbed "China's Bordeaux", the region lags far behind the world's giants in terms of grape planting and processing technology. But now it is seeking international cooperation to update its technology and build up its own famous brands.

Shuang Feng has the details.(www.hXen.com)

Reporter:

Ningxia's soil and climate conditions are reported to be equal with those of Bordeaux, a region in southwest France famous for its high quality grapes.

After over 20 years of development, east of the Helan Mountains has become one of China's best grape and wine production regions.

Until now, the planting areas of grapes for wine production have exceeded 1.3 thousand hectares.

Wang Qi, secretary general of China Alcoholic Drinks Industry Association, says Ningxia still has much room to improve compared with many of the best wine production bases in the world.

"First, the management skill is not advanced enough. This may be the choke point for local grape wine development. Second, the area lacks related talent. Grape growers do not get enough guidance. Third, we don't have outstanding brands of our own. The grapes have always been the raw materials for companies from other provinces."

Wang Qi believes to address these problems, the training of more talent should be highlighted.

"We should invite more talents to Ningxia to train more technicians to better help with grape planting and wine production. The local government should strengthen efforts to foster one or two famous brands to make Ningxia better known to other places in the country."

The government has noticed those disadvantages. Many forums and exchanges have been held in recent years to seek international cooperation to improve its technology in both grape planting and wine making.

Sakkie Pretorius is managing director of the Australian Wine Research Institute. He noted Ningxia needs to upgrade technology to boost the "still young industry".

"I think the first thing is to improve agricultural practices to find out do you have the right planting materials, does it match with the soil. Once you work that out, you will be able to then provide grape with renewed arts and science, in order to create really top ones."

Other experts say to explore wider domestic and even overseas markets, priority should be given to improving the quality of wine. Only if the quality is good enough, can brand building be successful and a bigger market be enjoyed.

Shuang Feng, CRI news.