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Home > CANADA > Business events in Italy
WINE & SPIRITS EXPO: ITALY MAKES DRUNK EVEN SEOUL
Rome (Ign) - The international market of wine and its derivatives, grappa and spirits, is in constant expansion and is also seeing the involvement of countries far away from the Mediterranean and European tradition. In fact, the Far East has also "cottoned on" to the pleasures of quality wines, so much so that it has organised numerous related trade fairs, such as the Wine & Spirits Expo (http://www.swsexpo.com), which will be held in Seoul from 2nd to 4th May 2007. This is one of the most important events in the sector, and the only one for South Korea, which will bring numerous trade professionals from all parts of the world. This is an occasion that the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade does not intend to miss and is currently organising the participation of the best Italian operators who will exhibit their products, presenting them to a high level market.
The statistics for Italian wines show, in actual fact, absolute excellence: in 2006, the percentage of the world wine trade held by Italy reached 20%, higher than any other country in the whole world. This result reflects the growth in turnover, which now exceeds € 9 billion and appears to be destined to increase thanks to development on foreign markets. The countries where Italian sales have shown the biggest increase are India (where, according to Coldiretti data, Italian wine exports increased by 70% in 2006, with over 300,000 bottles sold, for a revenue of € 1 million) and the USA, where Italian wine is the leader in the industry and, in fact, in 2006 (Italian Wine & Food Institute data) 2 million hectolitres were sold (double the amount of French wines, four times the amount of Chilean wines and seven times the amount of Spanish wines), making over $ 1 billion.
Korea represents an interesting market due to its dynamism: Italian wine imports recorded a 43% growth in 2005, in the middle of a period of development which is still in its initial phases, where the most important competitive factor is value for money.
The success of Italian wines is essentially due to the extremely wide variety of supply which can respond to the most different of market demands, both in terms of types of wine and price ranges. The Italian system boasts, on one hand, a well-consolidated business situation, which reaches tables all over the world through the large scale retail trade, and on the other, a collection of small and medium-sized companies, and not least the farm holiday industry, which through focused communication succeeds in conquering market niches for sought-after products, of very high quality. It is no coincidence that Italy holds one of the highest numbers of TGI (Typical Geographical Indication), DOC (Denomination of Controlled Origin) and DOCG (Denomination of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin) wines in Europe. The merit goes to the over 240,000 wine companies, the 195,000 vineyards and 43,000 wine growers and producers and the 700,000 people working in the industry, who succeed in relaunching the products and proposing new opportunities for getting to know wines and tasting them. This includes the "Wine routes", which introduced wine tourism and in 2006 brought about a turnover of over € 2 billion and 4 million wine tourists.
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