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With Japan’s beer production going south, Japanese brewers have begun to look east with greater interest. In November, Kirin Brewery Co, Japan’s major beverage company by sales, announced that it would spend JPY3.9 billion, or USD37.6 million, for a 25 percent stake in Dalian Daxue Brewery, located in northeast China. Kirin will acquire all of the shares to be floated by Dalian Daxue and as a result will own 25 percent of all outstanding shares.
Kirin said it planned to double the Dalian-based brewer’s yearly production capacity to 4.0 million hl by December 2008. It will add to the Zhuhai Kirin President Brewery Co., in Guangdong Province, which Kirin already runs. China, which became the world’s biggest beer producer in 2002, brewed 254 million hl last year, according to Kirin..
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