A shortage of professional tasters in the wine brewing industry
will soon be eased as China has listed wine taster as a new
profession in the country's tenth batch of new professions.
China has more than 15,600 wine companies, yet more than 80
percent of them complain of a shortage of wine tasters.
Liu Kang, employment training center director of the Ministry of
Labour and Social Security (MLSS), said the establishment of the
new profession would help standardize the training market and
accelerate the growth of the industry.
Wine taster is among ten new professions approved by the MLSS.
The other nine are color design consultant, digital music composer,
labor relations coordinator, lifeguard, safety assessment engineer,
dairy product taster, kitchen manager, nuts cook and glass
examiner.
All these ten new professions come from tertiary industry, Liu
said, which "reflected mushroom growth of new professions in
service sectors."
Industries such as color design, a mature industry in developed
countries, is relatively new to Chinese customers. Japan has more
than 400,000 color design consultants, but China has only 300,000
at the moment.
Color design professionals would help companies improve their
aesthetics, and increase added-value of their products as well as
competitiveness, Liu said.
Digital music composing is another emerging industry. Although
there are a lot of people working in the business, disorder in the
training market have blocked the industry from expanding on the
right track.
Liu held that the establishment of the profession would push
forward the country's music industry.
Related governmental organs are working on national standards of
training and examination for the new professions.
According to the latest statistics, the added-value of the
service industry accounted for more than 40 percent of the gross
domestic product. In 2006, there were 246 million people working in
the service sectors, 48 million people more than in 2000.
The country issued the first batch of new professions in Aug.
2004. To date, 106 professions have been established since
then.
(Xinhua News Agency December 9, 2007)