Hong Kong: China Resources Breweries Ltd. (CRB), the country's second-largest beermaker, said on Monday, December 13, it will buy a brewery in wealthy eastern China, its fourth acquisition this year as it races to add capacity in the fiercely competitive and consolidating market, under the Reuters report.

CRB, which has 12 % of China's beer market, the world's largest by volume, said it had struck a deal to acquire a 70 % stake in Zhejiang Xiling brewery. The deal calls for it to build a new brewery to replace an old one, with a total investment of 220 million yuan (US$26.6 million).

CRB, which is 49-percent owned by global brewer SABMiller , said it will continue on the acquisition trail next year, although big breweries with annual capacity of over 200,000 kilolitres are increasingly difficult to find. "There are opportunities in the market, but there are fewer big brewers in the market now," Francis Kwong, executive director at China Resources Enterprise Ltd. -- the other stakeholder of CRB -- told Reuters by phone.

The new plant, which is expected to be completed in the second half of next year, will have annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes in phase one, and can be expanded to add another 100,000 tonnes. The acquisition of Xiling brewery, which has a 16 % market share in the eastern province of Zhejiang, comes after CRB invested in Zhejiang's largest brewer, Qianjiang, earlier this year.

The four acquisitions this year will help to boost CRB production capacity by 1.5 million kilolitres to about 5.8 million kilolitres, Kwong said.

China's competitive beer market, where a 640 millilitre bottle costs as little as 12 U.S. cents, is highly fragmented with top players owning less than 20 percent of the total market. The market has seen rampant consolidation involving foreign giants such as Anheuser-Busch and Heineken as beermakers rush to build national brands in China.

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