2024-01-13 05:50:56
A scene from a video known to have been filmed at the third Tsingtao Beer factory in Shandong Province, China last year. A man wearing work clothes is doing something that appears to be urinating on beer ingredients (malt). /Weibo
As the popularity of Chinese beer brands, including Tsingtao, waned after the urine beer controversy last year, imports of Japanese beer were found to be increasing significantly. Meanwhile, Japanese beer ‘Asahi’ and Chinese beer ‘Tsingtao’ have been fiercely competing for the top spot in imported beer.
According to the Korea Customs Service’s trade statistics on the 13th, Japanese beer imports from January to November last year amounted to $50.3 million. Although the import amount from December last year was not reflected, it has already exceeded the total import amount of $14.48 million in 2021 by 247.3%.
Previously, in October last year, a video of a man appearing to urinate in a warehouse storing malt, a raw material for beer, at Qingdao Beer Factory 3 in Pingdu, Shandong Province, China, spread on social media. Tsingtao, China’s fourth largest beer, was branded a ‘piss beer’, and the company’s market capitalization evaporated by more than 1 trillion won in two days on the Shanghai stock market.
China’s beer exports were also hit. In the case of Korea, as of October last year, Chinese beer imports amounted to $1.927 million, a 37.7% decrease from the same month last year ($3.094 million).
A customer is selecting imported beer at a large supermarket in downtown Seoul in November last year. /News 1
On the other hand, imports of Japanese beer are rapidly increasing thanks to the recovery of Korea-Japan relations. Japanese beer imports were 86,676 tons in 2018, ranking first among importing countries, but plummeted to 47,331 tons in 2019, falling to third place, and fell to 10th place in 2020.
This is because in 2019, when the Japanese government implemented export restrictions in opposition to the Korean Supreme Court’s ruling on compensation for forced labor victims, a ‘No Japan’ atmosphere was formed, leading to a phenomenon of people avoiding Japanese products.
However, the No-Japan movement has virtually ended, and Lotte Asahi Liquor’s ‘Asahi Super Dry Draft Beer Can’ has gained popularity since its official release in Korea in May last year, leading to increased imports of Japanese beer.
A liquor industry official said, “There is competition between Japanese and Chinese beers in the imported beer market, so as imports of Japanese beer increase, imports of Chinese beer naturally decrease.”
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