Vietnam: Beer industry proud of significant growth this year

Vietnam’s beer industry is proudly showing a significant growth this year, a representative of the Viet Nam Beer-Alcohol-Beverage Association (VBA) was quoted as saying by VNS on December, 24.

"In 2009, the domestic beer industry is estimated to reach a growth rate of between 12 and 15 per cent over last year," said Nguyen Thi Huyen, secretary of the association.

By the last month of this year, almost all of the alcohol and beer companies in the country reached around 90 per cent of their 2009 targets, Huyen said.

"This number is really high compared to last year when it was only 60-70 per cent," Huyen said, adding that some big companies announced that by the middle of December they had exceeded their targets.

The weather is one of many factors helping the industry to achieve a high growth rate this year.

This summer, it was so hot that demand for beer strongly increased.

This year, moreover, the impact of inflation has been reduced, so many people are able to afford beer.

"Another reason is that consumers prefer domestic beer because it is more suited to their tastes," Huyen said.

According to the association’s forecasts, beer consumption in the coming months will increase due to the Tet holiday.

Recently, the Vietnamese beer industry has shown many good signs. Over the past 10 years, the industry has achieved a high and stable growth rate.

In 2007-08, 151 beer manufacturers existed nationwide with an annual output of more than 2 billion litres.

Of them, eight manufacturers were run at a capacity of more than 100 million litres per year.

Consumption of bottled beer and canned beer has increased year-on-year by about 13 and 20 per cent, respectively.

This output makes the Vietnamese beer industry the second largest in Southeast Asia and export destinations include Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Laos and Cambodia.

At this rate, the country plans to produce and consume between 3.1 and 3.2 billion litres of beer next year. This number will increase to 6-6.5 billion litres and 7-7.5 billion litres of beer in 2015 and 2025, respectively.

In order to achieve this goal, the association advised companies to strengthen their competitiveness by expanding and improving their production as well as to invest in technology.

In recent years, the Sai Gon Beer Company and the Ha Noi Beer Company invested a large amount in technology to help them produce many high-quality products at lower prices, the association said.