Not so dry
While there has been prima facie shortage of bottled water after the Songhuajiang crisis, Harbin is not a dry city as yet.
Chinese media sources said Harbin residents targeted not only bottled water, but also beer on the supermarket shelves. "Under the influence of the Russians," according to a feature on the Harbin crisis in the China Business Times, "Harbin-ers drink beer like irrigation." "To Harbin-ers beer is not so different from cold water."
Harbin Beer claims to be China's oldest beer - a Russian businessman founded China's first brewery in northeast China in 1900 - three years older than German's Tsingtao Beer.
Harbin Brewery had been listed in Hong Kong and was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, which defeated SABMiller, in 2004.
Anheuser-Busch ...... said the water shutdown had not significantly affected its beer production in Harbin and that it was providing some of its supplies to Harbin's citizens.
"The city of Harbin asked our support in supplying fresh drinking water from the wells used at our two breweries to citizens, which we are doing at both breweries, as well as through supplying mobile tankers that will ... deliver fresh drinking water," it said. (Financial Times)
Perhaps AB calls it corporate responsibility. In a city with 3 millions population in the urban area, I call it spectacular PR stunt.
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