Moldova: Beer prices up by about 2 % after introduction of new excises

Prices of beer in Moldova have grown by about 2 percent after new excises for this product took effect on January 1, 2006, BASA learned from Rodion Melnic, marketing chief of Efes Vitanta Moldova Brewery, which controls 70 percent of the domestic beer market, Moldavian source, BASA-Press, posted on January 13.

He said that beer producers and importers increased the price of a beer bottle by 0.05-0.10 lei, after the excise rose from one leu per litre up to 1.1 lei per litre. "This is an insignificant rise if we take into account the high inflation rate [8.5 percent in 11 months of 2005]," Melnic noted. He estimated that such a rise will not affect the consumption.

Asked how the beer prices will develop in 2006, the Efes Vitanta representative said that everything will depend on the size of prices of natural gas, electricity, as well as fluctuation of the exchange rate of leu.

Melnic underlined that the enterprise aims at a 13-percent production growth this year, influenced by increasing consumption in the past years. In 2005, the beer consumption per capita was about 26 litres, by 15 percent more than in 2004.

Data of the National Bureau for Statistics show that the beer production was worth 446 million lei in January-November 2005, by 8 percent more than in the similar period of 2004. // BASA-Press

13 January, 2006