TAIWAN TOBACCO & WINE HIKE PRICE OF RICE WINE 600%.

AsiaPulse News, January, 2002

TAIPEI, Jan 3 Asia Pulse - The Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (TTWB) has relaunched its famous traditional recipe rice wine with a new bottle and a 600 per cent price rise to coincide with the country's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) on New Year's Day.

The new rice wine will come in a new square bottle with a brown label, and will cost NT$130 for a 0.6 liter bottle.

TTWB said its first release of the wine will be of no more than 10,000 cases of a dozen bottles each. However, the TTWB has promised that there will be no further price hikes through 2003.

According to TTWB estimates, the public has stockpiled more than 6 million dozen-bottle cases of the old "red label" rice wine over the past two months after word spread of the impending...