[jackbl]

Thirst for beer remains unquenched
=============================================
VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam’s beer market would continue to be one of Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing, according to global market research firm Euromonitor International.


Euromonitor International sees continued expansion of the market, at around 5.6 per cent growth over the next few years, slightly behind Laos and Cambodia.

Viet Nam’s integration into the World Trade Organisation opened up more opportunities for investment and imports from foreign companies, particularly with the Government’s commitment to slash tax on imported beer, said Spiros Malandrakis, an analyst with Euromonitor International.

The country’s total beer sales experienced an significant increase of 56 per cent last year, topping 1.6 billion litres, the second fastest growth rate in the region after Cambodia.

Some foreign beer brands like Budweiser, Sapporo, San Miguel and Fosters have also entered the local market.

Last week, the Viet Nam Br$$$$$es Company opened a factory with the capacity to produce 50,000 bottles of La Rue beer per hour near the central city of Da Nang.

The company is a joint venture, newly-established between Asia Pacific Br$$$$$es (APB) from Singapore and Viet Nam’s Sai Gon Trading Group (SATRA).

As one of the first beer producers in Viet Nam after the country opened its doors to outside enterprise 20 years ago, APB plans to invest US$100 million in Viet Nam’s beer industry over the next 18 months.

Japan’s Sapporo also plans to link up with Tobacco Viet Nam to produce beer from 2012. The company said it would be the first Japanese brewery to build a production and marketing base in the promising Vietnamese market which has been growing at an annual rate of more than 10 per cent.

The US’s Crown Holdings Inc has already announced that it would invest another $25 million in its production facility in Tam Phuoc Industrial Zone in the southern province of Dong Nai. It bought the production line last June from Malaysia’s Interfood Shareholding Co.

Crown Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd’s chairman Josef Salaerts said the line, with a capacity of 600 million 330ml cans annually, could begin operations in the fourth quarter of this year, and its capacity would grow to 1.2 billion cans in a years time.

A report by British Business Monitor International Ltd predicted that earnings in Viet Nam’s alcoholic beverage industry were increasing 16 per cent annually.

Beer, which accounts for 97.9 per cent of total alcohol beverage consumption, was expected to see a growth in consumption averaging over 50 per cent per year through to 2013.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News