Poland's lower house of parliament, the Sejm, passed a bill that would slash the excise tax on beer by 30%, a move long supported by local brewers and their foreign owners, including SABMiller, Heineken and Carlsberg. The excise tax is to be lowered from PLN 7 to PLN 4.85 per hectoliter (100 liters) upon Poland's entry into the European Union, Interfax-Europe said on December 17.

Polish brewers say a lowering of the excise tax is necessary to preserve Poland's competitiveness on a common European market. In Poland, one must pay PLN 0.43 in excise for every half-liter bottle, a figure over twice that in Poland's EU and to-be-EU neighbors, according to data released by Poland's brewers' association. Meanwhile, Germans pay PLN 0.18 per half-liter bottle, the Czechs PLN 0.19, the Slovaks PLN 0.20 and the Lithuanians PLN 0.21, according to Browary Polskie.

Beer companies paid over PLN 2 bln in excise tax to the state budget in 2002, but along with the value-added-tax (VAT) this burden exceeded PLN 5 bln in 2002. The excise tax bill now awaits presidential signature.

Polish breweries had nine-month sales volumes at 21.5 mln hectoliters, or 3.6% more than a year earlier. Polish beer sales rose 7.7% to 26 mln hectoliters in 2002 against a year earlier. Poland was rated the world's tenth biggest and Europe's fifth biggest country in terms of beer consumption.

23 December, 2003