Russia: Each Russian drinks on average 55 litres of beer per year. The target is to reach a per capita beer consumption of 70 litres per year by 2010. To this purpose Russian beer industry has to grow by about 4% per year, market analysts revealed on December 28.

According to experts, in 2004 Russian brewers are expected to produce 83-84 million hl. This is up 12% versus 2003, when Russia brewed 75 million hl of beer. The forecast for the next years is on average 6% growth. Three leading beer makers in 2004 are Baltika, Sun Interbrew and Efes.

The growth of Russian beer sales in 2004 are estimated at 7.4% compared to the forecast of 5% at the beginning of the year, according to Russian Brewers Association.

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