Ukraine: Beer prices are to increase

Beer production in Ukraine has increased by 23% last year compared to 2004, the Union of Russian Brewers announced May 19. The stage was populated by �Obolon� (Kiev), �Rogan Brewery� (Kharkov) and �Desna Brewery� based in Chernigov. On the overall, it was possible to observe an interesting trend in the Ukrainian beer industry - �big players� became even bigger for the account of small companies, which barely control for about 7 % of the national beer market.

According to analysts, no essential changes among the main players occurred. Following the last year statistics, the domestic beer market is shared by �SUN Interbrew Ukraine�, �Obolon�, the BBH group and �Sarmat�. Generally all producers have increased their production capacities, the fact, which consequently conducts to the assumption that both competition and production are to intensify.

What about the beer-drinker? Brewers declare that producing one bottle of beer is gradually getting more expensive. Why? � Because of incremental prices for energy supply and combustive-lubricating materials. It goes the same way for the malting barley due to the un-uniform crop evolution and it is generally un-efficient to import it because of severe duties. The last but not the less important factor is the raising fiscal pressure. For example, taxes for only water have moved up 20 times last year.

How big prices will be, anyway? Beer producers continue to be extremely discreet about revealing the level of the price increment. Most likely, they wait for a seasonal bigger demand for their production.

One of the first companies who announced changes in price politics was �Obolon�. According to the head of the �Obolon� public relations service, Oksana Pirojok, the company has raised prices for its production since the 6th of March. This situation was explained by the raise in price for gas and raw material. Anyway, this raise wasn�t uniform for the overall range of products released by the company. Every single company�s brand was qualified for a special raise in price. Anyway, all brands suffered an increment in price.

The same attitude was expressed by �Sarmat� CEO Sergey Kalinin, who stressed out that prices are generally about to rise.