Chinese liquor firms fight ban on boozy lunches

from yahoo

Wed Dec 26, 10:26 PM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Liquor makers in China are demanding that a city regulation barring public servants and Communist Party officials from the Chinese version of a three martini lunch be revoked, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The regulation, launched in January in the city of Xinyang in Henan province, is illegal, according to several of the province's producers of "baijiu", China's pungent answer to vodka that is ubiquitous at banquets where toasts are downed by the shot.

"They are preparing to ask the legal affairs committee of the standing committee of the provincial People's Congress and the government's legal institutions office to react, requesting that the rule be revised or revoked," the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Daily said.

Liquor, beer and, increasingly, wine are common at China's lunch tables, including at business luncheons where hosts treat guests to lavish, multi-course feasts that can last hours.

Public servants and their lunch partners apparently comprised a large part of Henan's "baijiu" market, and sales at some liquor companies dropped by as much as a third in the wake of the regulation, the newspaper said.

The Henan liquor producers' association put the issue on its 2008 agenda.

(Reporting by John Ruwitch, editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)