Brewers lost 135 million-euro business this summer

The beer market has reverted to 2005 figures after brewers posted 1.5 million hectolitre lower sales this summer compared with the corresponding period of 2008, which equals 135 million euros or the annual production of a high-capacity brewery, ZF has estimated based on the data supplied by the National Statistics Institute (INS). The Institute releases such data one month after receiving them from producers. "Sales in the last quarter of the year may be better than those recorded in the same time of last year, because the October-December period of this year will overlap the first months of decline of beer sales in 2008," said Shachar Shaine, chairman of United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, producer of Tuborg and Skol, and one of the biggest players in the local beer industry, a market with sales of 1.6 billion euros in 2008. The sales of beer, which is the second largest market of consumer goods after the cigarette market and an important barometer of the economy went down by more than 17% in the first few months of this year, according to INS data, with the biggest decline registered this summer (July and August), more than 20%.