This has been one of the best years for the tequila industry with producers breaking production and export records.

“In 2019 we achieved the highest production of tequila in history, reaching 330 million liters in November,” said the president of the Tequila Regulatory Council (CRT), Miguel Ángel Domínguez Morales.

“We still need to add the numbers from December and we’ll surely be talking about ending the unprecedented year with over 350 million liters.”

A year ago the industry expected 2019 production to be about 310 million liters.

Domínguez said exports also broke a record with 230 million liters shipped as of November, “breaking our own export record for the 10th year.”

CRT director Ramón González Figueroa described the year as “spectacular” for the industry.

“We’ll close 2019 with a record for production, almost one million liters per day; a record in exports, 472 liters per minute; a record in agave consumption, over 1.2 million tonnes; and a record in the number of countries that protect the denomination of origin and recognize the issue of intellectual property; [that’s] 30 countries in just a year,” he said.

And tequila’s popularity on the world market is expected to continue growing, especially in China. González expects the country to be among the world’s top 10 importers of tequila within the next two years since it finally eliminated tariff barriers.

Even after China began to recognize tequila’s denomination of origin, which protects it as an authentically Mexican product, the country’s protectionist policy still restricted the amount Mexico could export.

But González said notification had just been received to advise that the barriers had been lifted.

According to the tequila council, 1.02 million liters of tequila were exported to China between January and November. To become one of the top 10 importers it will have to import two million liters, which González believes will happen in the next two years due to the size of the Chinese market.

Source: El Economista (sp)