China. CRB Spent 330 Million on the Factory in Loudi Settled in Hunan

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CRB laid the foundation stone for its 200-thousand-kiloliter annual production project in Loudi, Hunan Province.

On June 10th 2011, China Resources Snow Breweries (China) Co., LTD (CRB) officially announced that CRB started building the production base in Loudi. The new factory will be located at Loudi economic developing zone Taihe Industrial Park, covering an area of 300 acres, with a total investment of 330 million yuan. The production plan is to achieve 200-thousand-kiloliters annually.

The secretary municipal committee of Loudi Wu Lin, People’s Congress Mayor Shuofu Zhang, China Resources Snow Breweries (China) Co., LTD CTO Wenfeng Cheng, China Resources Snow Breweries (Loudi) Co., LTD Manager Xiangyang Yu and other leaders attended the acquisition ceremony; in addition, Mayor Shuofu Zhang gave a very important speech.

It is important to note that CRB has already owned a factory in Yueyang, Hunan Province, since to 2007. The fact that they settled in Hunan indicates consolidation and a growth in the Hunan market.

According to China Resources Snow Breweries (China) Co., LTD CTO Wenfeng Cheng, the market in Hunan is CRB’s most important market in Central China; in addition, it is also the place that carries on their historic mission and supports “Development of the West Regions” in China. Loudi is not only the hinterland in the Hunan province, but also the economic communication hub between the central and western regions; therefore, the establishing of the factory in Loudi is significantly important to the national business strategy of CRB.

CRB already has a solid foundation of marketing in the local area. Since arriving in Loudi in 2005, CRB has benefited from intensive interaction with local consumers, through events like Snow beer festivals, which convince Loudi residents to adopt Snow beer as their local beer brand. These things laid the groundwork for the establishment of the factory in Loudi when the conditions were ripe.

Local industry professionals think that the CRB Loudi factory will be one of the biggest breweries in the Hunan Province, with the most advanced equipment. According to CRB, all the production processed are controlled by computer, and key processes like, saccharification, smashing, fermentation, yeast propagation, filtering, and packaging are all automated processes.

According to publicly accessible information, Snow beer has been leading the industry since 2005; however, in 2010, CRB continued enlarging the sale volume gap between itself and its competitors. Last year, CRB sold over 9.28-million-kiloliters of beer. With 11% growth, and Snow’s single-brand sales increased by 16% to 8.413-million-kiloliters, the company consolidated its position as the leading beer brand in the world.

Without question the leader of the Chinese beer industry, CRB does will not lose its momentum in 2011; instead, it plans to keep running faster and faster. This delivers a positive signal: the Chinese beer industry will continue growing at a high speed.

About CRB (China) Co., Ltd.

CRB (China) Co., Ltd., established in 1994, is a professional production and management beer company of the country. It is headquartered in Beijing, China. Its shareholders are China Resources Enterprise, Limited and the world’s second largest beer group, SABMiller. CRB is currently operating more than 70 breweries in China, including Snow brand, and holds more than 30 regional brands in the Chinese beer market and has 19.8% of the market share. In 2010, CRB sold over 9.28-million-kiloliters of beer. With 11% growth, the company’s total production and sales have been exceeded those of other domestic beer companies for five consecutive years. In 2010, Snow’s single-brand sales increased by 16% and reached 8.413-million-kiloliters, consolidating its position as the leading beer brand in the world.

About Snow Beer

In 1964, in a product rating competition, where all the top Chinese beer companies had gathered, a new product took the prize. It was all because of its rich, white, snow-like foam, and long-lasting taste, like a flower, giving it its name: “Snow Beer.”

In 2002, CRB (China) Co., Ltd. made Snow Beer into a national beer brand. Snow Beer has a fresh, light taste and is a positive, aggressive, challenging and innovative brand with high popularity among consumers nationwide. It has become a favorite beer among youth. The State Administration for Industry and Trademark Office declared “Snow” brand as “China’s Famous Brand” in September 2007.

In 2005, Snow Beer sold 1.58-million-kiloliters of beer and became number one in sales of single-product beer brands. In 2006, Snow became the fastest growing and most valuable beer brand; its brand value reached 11.185 billion yuan. Following 2006, after becoming number one in single-product sales, it reached a record high in 2007: 5.1 million-kiloliters sold; once again, it achieved the best single-product sales in the Chinese beer industry. In 2007, Snow’s brand value reached 13.658 billion yuan. Single-brand Snow sales increased by 19.1% in 2008; sales reached 6.1-million-kiloliters, and it was given the “number one single-brand sales” title four times, becoming the world’s number-one selling beer brand, with a brand value of 15.3 billion. Snow’s brand value increased to 37.726 billion yuan in 2009.

About China Resources Enterprise, Limited

China Resources Enterprise, Limited is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, as one of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index constituent stocks. The company focuses on consumer products business, with operations in Mainland China and Hong Kong, and is principally engaged in retail, beverage, food processing and distribution.

About SABMiller plc

SABMiller is one of the world’s largest beer companies; it is a London-based company that is listed on the London and Johannesburg stock market exchange. SABMiller has a large-scale production and sale of beer and other beverages in 75 countries on six continents. It owns more than one hundred breweries and two hundred brands of beer; its annual beer sales are about 21.0393 million tons. SABMiller is highly recognized for its production management in the international market and is considered to be a well-operated company in emerging markets. In many countries the company has entered, SABMiller brand portfolio and market shares are all in the market leadership position.

This SABMiller subsidiary news release has been translated from its local market language to English language for publication on www.sabmiller.com. We have attempted to provide an accurate translation of the original material but due to the difficulties of translation slight differences may exist.