Organized by the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce, the Sichuan Survey Team under the National Bureau of Statistics and the Luzhou municipal government, the Chinese Liquor Wholesale Price Index has been formally released in Luzhou, Southwest China's Sichuan province.

Compiled by the Luzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce and Luzhou Survey Team, the index is the result of Luzhou's endorsement of the strategy made by the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Sichuan provincial government to forge the Chinese Liquor Golden Triangle and build the Liquor Wall Street, according to Luzhou Party chief Liu Guoqiang.

The new site of the Alcohol Product Trade Center of China was inaugurated in Luzhou, Southwest China’s, Sichuan province, on March 22, 2012. [Photo/Long Min]

Speaking at a ceremony marking the release of the index on March 22, Lu Zhengmin, a leading official from the Ministry of Commerce, said the market trends of the Luzhou liquor market had a major impact on the liquor market of Sichuan and the whole country. The release of the index, the first of its kind in the country, would help liquor enterprises understand the development trends and provide information for governments at different levels to make scientific liquor development policies.

Since the compilation of the index kicked off three years ago, it won the support of the Ministry of Commerce, the National Bureau of Statistics, Sichuan provincial and Luzhou municipal governments, and the technical backing of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu University of Information, the Sichuan Provincial Department of Commerce and the Sichuan Survey Corps, said Luzhou mayor Liu Qiang.

The compilation of the index had introduced the internationally accepted pull chain price index theory and method. Through the survey of major liquor-selling enterprises, selection of famous Chinese liquor and related products as the merchandise for survey, weighted calculations to reflect the changes in the wholesale prices of liquor in the circulation market, the index would be in the form of percentage to reflect the fluctuation of Chinese liquor’s wholesale prices in different periods.

In the compiling process, 206 sample sites had been chosen in Sichuan to select some 300 products. To ensure the reliability of data, it had been submitted at fixed sites by designated people at fixed time. Online direct reporting had been introduced, too, he said.

The compilation and regular issue of the index would help liquor-making enterprises set prices for their products, wholesale enterprises purchase the right products at the right time and ensure the orderly development of China’s liquor sector, Lu said.

It was also on March 22 that the opening ceremony for the new site of the Alcohol Product Trade Center of China was held in Luzhou.

Launched by the Luzhou Laojiao Group and Luzhou Liquor Concentrated Development Zone Co. Ltd, the center has a planned area of 120,000 square meters. A liquor product spot trading venue covering 30,000 square meters has been built with a total investment of over 300 million yuan (US$48 million) .

The Alcohol Product Trade Center of China whose construction was completed in 2009, is designated to build the customer-oriented, powerful integrated electronic trading service platform. The library of its basic liquor delivery has reached the scale of 200,000 tons. It is expected to reach 1 million tons in the future, Liu said.

At present, the center deals in upstream and downstream liquor products including the finished liquor, base liquor, starter, sorghum and packing materials.

It has nearly 100 dealer members and the total online transaction registers 1 billion yuan. It will have more than 3,000 liquor and related product dealers and transactions will surpass 80 billion yuan in 2020, Liu said.

He believed that the Chinese Liquor Wholesale Price Index would become the most authoritative liquor price index in China and the Alcohol Product Trade Center of China would be the country’s premier liquor trading platform.

Luzhou would give full play to its advantages as the site of the Chinese Liquor Wholesale Price Index and the Alcohol Product Trade Center of China and devote all its efforts to developing the liquor industry. The city ia aimed at realizing the goal of 100 billion yuan from sales of liquor in 2016, he said.

In recent years, Luzhou, a city known for its time-honored liquor culture, has endorsed the strategy made by the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee and Sichuan provincial government to forge the Chinese Liquor Golden Triangle.

The efforts have paid off. Sales of the city's liquor sector amounted to 46.7 billion yuan last year, 7.8 times the figure for 2006. Its profits and taxes paid to the State amounted to 11.5 billion yuan, 8.7 times the figure for 2006, Liu said.

Yibin and Luzhou cities in Sichuan and the area along the Chishui River Valley in neighboring Guizhou province which abound in famous liquor brands such as Wuliangye, Luzhou Laojiao and Moutai are known as the Chinese Liquor Golden Triangle.