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Thailand: Thai Asia Pacific Brewery Co, local producer and distributor of Heineken beer, has doubled the brewing capacity at its Nonthaburi plant. The Bt2.9-billion (US$74 million) expansion - to 200 million litres annually - will give Thailand the most modern and efficient Heineken brewery in the region. The plant employs about 300 people. Heineken has invested more than Bt8 billion (US$205 million) in the Kingdom since the factory in Nonthaburi opened in 1995, according to Associated Press. Anthony Ruys, global chairman of Heineken, and Koh Poh Tiong, chief executive officer of Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) of Singapore, was present in Bangkok on February 4 to preside over the opening ceremony of the expanded plant.

APB is a Singapore-listed company with 14 brewery operations in eight countries in the Asia Pacific - Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. It is a joint venture between Singapore's soft-drink giant Fraser & Neave Ltd and Heineken NV of the Netherlands. The company manages a portfolio of over 40 beer brands and brand variants, with Tiger Beer and Heineken as its flagships. Thai Asia Pacific Brewery is a joint venture between APB and local partners, which are Thai Life Insurance Group, Thai Pure Drinks and Thai Military Bank.

Panya Pongtanya, general manager of Thai Asia Pacific Brewery, said the expansion of the Nonthaburi plant would facilitate the company's plan to export Heineken beer from Thailand and the launch of new beer products to the Thai market later this year. He said the plant would serve the growth of the local premium-beer segment, where Heineken dominates the market with a share of 80 percent. ``We project the premium-beer segment to grow by 7 percent this year and the total beer market to expand by 10 percent to 1.6 billion litres, worth Bt80.5 billion (US$2 billion),'' said Panya. ``We expect a maximum annual capacity of 200 million litres or around one million bottles a day will be fully achieved in three years,'' he said. APB has Heineken factories in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore and will open another factory soon in China, he added.

Thai Asia Pacific Brewery will invest Bt650 million (US$17 million) in advertising and marketing campaigns this year to strengthen its Heineken brand. The company's sales reached Bt6.6 billion (US$169 million) for the fiscal year ending September 2003. Panya anticipates 10-percent sales growth this year. He also said the company had started exporting Heineken from the Nonthaburi plant to Malaysia and Singapore a couple of months ago. It will export the brand to another two to three markets in the region this year. ``We expect to gain Bt100 million from exports this year and the export figure will double next year,'' said Panya.

He said exports would represent between 20 percent and 30 percent of total sales of Thai Asia Pacific Brewery in the next three years, while another 20 percent would be from non-Heineken brand products launched by the company. He added that the company would launch new beer products this year, which could be under the existing brand owned by APB or a new brand created by the Thai operation. Besides Heineken, APB also owns many well-known beer brands in the region, including Tiger, Anchor, ABC Stout and Ruffle.

Donald Otten, technical manager of Thai Asia Pacific Brewery, said the expansion would make the company the largest producer of Heineken in the Asia-Pacific region. ``The new state-of-the-art facilities include the world's most advanced automated brewing and bottling technologies that combine efficiency with traditional methods, to give Heineken its unique flavour,'' he said. Otten added that the expansion of the brewery in Thailand was part of the production allocation for the Heineken product, under which the company could source beer from anywhere in the world.


06 February, 2004