China is the world's largest alcohol market, making up nearly 40 percent of global spirits consumption, and some officials in the tequila industry believe China is ripe for the picking, according to a Mexican liquor industry executive.

"We've seen exceptional promotion of tequila in China, so there is tremendous potential," Raffaele Berardi, CEO of Fraternity Spirits, an international Mexican spirits distributor, said. "But there is not the knowledge in the market there to direct people to the drink and Western/Mexican culture."

"In terms of a newly developing market, China does provide a good avenue through which to build up our network on a larger scale," he said. "But it is a process."

Fraternity Spirits, founded in 1994, is a Mexico City-based trade group that handles the international marketing and promotion endeavors for a number of premium liquor companies.

And with a market presence in more than 70 countries, including distribution centers in the US, Germany and Spain, Fraternity Spirits has managed to find a following in China for its premier tequila brand, Tequila Corralejos.

But until recently much of Mexico's tequila was not allowed in China. In 2008, China prohibited the import of 100 percent blue agave tequila from Mexico for fear over its methanol content. Unlike ethanol (drinking alcohol), methanol is an alcoholic compound that is unfit for consumption and highly toxic beyond trace amounts.

But China and Mexico agreed to the import and sale of tequila in June 2013, after Chinese President Xi Jinping and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto signed the so-called "Tequila pact".

During Xi's visit to Latin America last June, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported that Mexico and China signed a far-reaching bilateral trade agreement aimed at offsetting a trade imbalance between the two countries.

Mexico imported $57 billion in goods from China in 2012, while the country sent $5.7 billion abroad to China, based on Mexican trade statistics.

A June 26 report from cctv.com showed that two-way trade flows between the countries climbed to nearly $68 billion in 2013, a figure that is expected to rise again this year.

Mexico is now China's second largest trading partner in Latin America, second only to Brazil.

Berardi said his firm has seen China's interest in tequila grow slowly since making initial contacts in China in 2001.

"Expansion and business in China is doing well, but the potential is still below expectations," he said.

Mexico exported 525,000 liters of tequila to China in 2013, a 28 percent increase year-over-year, according to the Tequila Regulatory Council of Mexico.

And estimates from the Camara Nacional de la Industria Tequilera (CNIT), Mexico's main tequila trade association, forecast that Mexican tequila exports to China will reach 10 million liters in five years, which would make China the second largest market for Mexican tequila after the United States.

Mexico exported 132 million liters of tequila to the US, its largest export market, last year. The US accounted for nearly 80 percent of Mexico's tequila exports last year, followed by Germany and Spain.

Despite the relatively small tequila market in China, Eduardo Orendain, president of the National Chamber of the Tequila Industry, sees a large potential for Mexican tequila exports to the country.

"When the two countries' presidents agreed to allow the imports of 100 percent agave alcohol (in China), they have opened up vast prospects for the tequila industry," he told China Daily in a July interview.

Berardi said knowing how to market and sell the product is the top priority, but companies that overlook China are missing a "key opportunity to expand overseas".

"China and Mexico are already pretty big trading partners, but some of the actions we have taken further the interaction between China and Mexico," Berardi said. "We have to think in terms of 10 years down the road, and accelerating the advertising of different products overseas takes time. But China has an appetite for tequila and there is a wide opportunity to add partners and stay in the market to grow the business."

jackfreifelder@chinadailyusa.com