The Chinese drank more than 30 million tons of beer last year and
consumption per capita reached 24.2 liters, according to the country's alcoholic
drinks industry association.
China had been the world's largest producer and consumer of beer for four
consecutive years, said Wang Yancai, secretary of the association, during the
China International Wine Industry Expo2006 here Friday.
As living standards of ordinary Chinese continued to rise, beer consumption
had soared.
China had more than two million people working in breweries, with the
production value exceeding 400 billion yuan (50.3 billionU.S. dollars) in
2005.
