(Yicai Global) June 2 -- Shares of Kweichow Moutai jumped to a historic high today after the world's most valuable distiller said that it will switch to online sales during its annual general meeting to avoid Covid-19 infections.

Kweichow Moutai's stock price [SHA: 600519] surged to as high as CNY1,427.90 (USD201.10) intraday while the company's market cap reached CNY1.77 trillion (USD248.6 billion) today. The shares have risen more than 25 percent this year.

The liquor firm will prepare 5,000 special boxes for the meeting, each containing eight bottles of baijiu, the Guizhou province-based company said at a press conference yesterday. Shareholders can scan a QR code during the event to order the product with home delivery.

The AGM box is priced at CNY5,666 (USD796), which is slightly less than JD.Com's price of CNY5,939 for a similarly sized product, although the e-commerce platform offers special discount vouchers. Hence, some people said on Weibo that the stockholders' discount in not big enough.

The distiller, which limits the annual supply, had more than 100,850 shareholders on March 31, which would mean that less than 5 percent of them will be able to get hold of such product, according to calculations based on the company's first-quarter earnings report.

Last year, more than 2,000 shareholders participated in the annual meeting that was overshadowed by their worries, voiced on Weibo, about insufficient beverage supply. During the event, former chairman Li Baofang said that there should be enough baijiu for everyone.

Editor: Emmi Laine