Vietnamese spent at least $3.1 billion on beer in 2014: association
Vietnamese spent at least $3.1 billion on beer in 2014: association
Vietnamese people spent at least US$3.1 billion drinking 3.14 billion liters of beer in 2014, excluding imported beer, the Vietnam Beverages Association (VBA) said Friday in a report.
Both beer production and consumption increased in Vietnam last year, with the former going up by 8.1 percent against the previous year.
The Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Sabeco) occupied the biggest market share with 1.3 billion liters, followed by the Hanoi Beer Alcohol and Beverage Joint Stock Corporation (Habeco) with 637 million liters.
Beer imported from other markets or carried by air into Vietnam as personal belongings was not included in the VBA report.
However, VBA chairman Nguyen Van Viet rejected conjectures that Vietnam ranks among the top beer-consumption nations in the world.
He said that Vietnamese consumes 30 liters a year, standing in 50th place and at an average level in the world.
Last year, many beer production projects came on stream such as Sabeco’s Saigon-Kien Giang Beer plant with a production capacity of 50 million liters a year.
Habeco also began operating a new system of canning beer, at 60,000 beer cans an hour.
In 2013, Vietnamese brewers collectively produced 2.9 billion liters of beer, a 7.4 percent increase compared to a year earlier.
