Ukrainian breweries in 2012 could produce 305 million decaliters of beer, which is the same amount as last year, according to Ukrpyvo Director General Halyna Korenkova.
“If we have 100% of last year’s [figure] at the end of this year, and the market dies not fall by more than 2%, we’ll consider this a victory,” she said at a press conference in Kyiv on September 14, 2012.
Earlier Ukrpyvo predicted that beer production would grow by 2% in 2012, to 311 million decaliters.
Korenkova said that according to Ukrpyvo’s projections, beer exports this year could total nearly 30 million decaliters, and imports 4.5-5 million decaliters.
According to Ukrpyvo, in January-August 2012 Ukraine produced 221.3 million decaliters of beer, which is 0.1% up year-over-year, the director said. In August alone, beer production fell by 3.4% year-over-year.
The expert said that over the eight months ending August 31, 2012, the market fell by almost 1.8%.
Korenkova said that the market fall was linked to a rise in the price of beer by almost 16% since the start of the year (mainly due to a rise in the prices of raw materials), the increase in imports of beer to the country and the low buying power of the public.
The expert said that Ukraine in January-August increased beer exports by 12%, to 20 million decaliters, while imports rose by 40%, to 3.5 million decaliters.
In 2011, Ukraine produced 305 million decaliters of beer, which is 1.6% down on 2010.
Ukrpyvo unites the major part of breweries in Ukraine.
