Feature: North China wine company witnesses decades of Sino-French cooperation

TIANJIN, May 6 (Xinhua) -- At the exhibition hall of Chinese winemaker Dynasty Fine Wines Group Limited, all its wine products made since 1980 are presented, telling the story of how French wine-making technology has spread and changed in China.

Dynasty Fine Wines Group Limited, in north China's Tianjin Municipality, was the first Sino-French joint venture, and over the past decades it has witnessed continued Sino-French cooperation.

"At first, it was just a grape farm," said Huang Manyou, executive director of Dynasty Fine Wines Group Limited. The grape farm, however, was where the bond between the two companies from China and France started.

In November 1979, a team from Remy Martin was looking for a suitable location to build a factory in China, and the grape quality at the farm attracted the team.

In May 1980, the Sino-French joint venture project to establish a winery was approved. After nearly 100 days of construction, the new plant was completed and officially put into operation that year. In the space of just three months after starting operation, the company managed to produce more than 100,000 bottles of wine.

Thanks to the technical support of the French side, the company also established a relatively advanced automated production line in 1980.

Wine made by the company soon enjoyed great recognition. In 1984, wine produced by this company won the gold medal at an international fair in Leipzig, Germany. Its wines also generated significant sales and secured more than half of China's domestic wine market.

In 1985, this continuous improvement of production and sales allowed the company to build a new factory, and by 1989 the company's annual production had reached 1 million bottles. In 2005, Dynasty Fine Wines Group Limited was successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Wine is a cultural symbol of cooperation, and it reflects continuous and in-depth exchanges and cooperation between China and France.

In recent years, thanks to the continued integration of the economic and cultural fields of the two countries, cooperation between China and France has become increasingly close.

Statistics show that since the two countries established diplomatic ties in 1964, bilateral trade volume has shown a more than 800-fold increase, with broad prospects for cooperation in agriculture, food, the services trade, high-end manufacturing and scientific and technological innovation.

According to a survey report released by the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China last year, 47 percent of its member companies planned to invest further in China, demonstrating that they felt positive about the Chinese market and considered this market to be reliable.