El Salvador: Brazilian beer-maker, AmBev (Companhia de Bebidas das Americas), is to enter the El Salvador beer market by the end of June the latest. They plan to occupy about 20% of the total domestic beer market through their subsidiary Cerveceria Rio, according to AFP. After 70 years of monopoly conditions on the beer market, El Salvador will enjoy a real competition, the general director of Cerveceria Rio, Mr. Gustavo Pimenta, declared. He added that Cerveceria Rio plans to invest about 20 million dollars in the first five years on the construction of their distribution facility. For the period that the distribution facility is not operational the project will be supported by Central America Bottling Corporation (Cabcorp) based in Guatemala, (the company which produces the Pepsi brand in the region). Cabcorp is going to make the distribution of Cerveceria Rio products in El Salvador during the transitional period.

“Cerveceria Rio came to stay in this market. We are going to have competitive prices,” remarked Mr. Pimenta, who previously was the director of AmBev Paraguay.

The principal competitor for AmBev in El Salvador beer market will be Cervecería La Constancia, whose majority of shares is controlled by SABMiller. “What will happen here in El Salvador is something very interesting. It will be a clear market competition between the global leader AmBev and SABMiller which already is the case in other Latin America countries,” Pimenta added.

Cerveceria Rio is already present in the beer markets of Guatemala and Nicaragua with 30% and 20% respectively. AmBev is now part of InBev, following its merger with Belgium's Interbrew. Globally AmBev enjoys a portfolio of 42 beer brands and owns 45 production plants. Their annual sales are about 3 billion USD.

Per capita consumption of beer in El Salvador is about 12 litres. In 2003 El Salvador produced 763 thousand hl of beer.

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