Vietnam tops Southeast Asia in the growth of beer and wine consumption

Vietnam tops Southeast Asia in the growth of beer and wine consumption

Vietnam has topped Southeast Asian nations on the growth of beer and wine consumption though it ranks eighth in GDP in the region, according to Vu Thi Minh Hanh, deputy head of the Hanoi-based Health Strategy and Policy Institute.

Vietnam has been on the top in the region on the growth of beer consumption since 2010.

At the conference on the prevention of ill effect of beer and wine held today, Hanh said Vietnam spends around US$3 billion a year for beer and VND16 trillion (US$744.2 million) a year for trademarked wine.

The spending on wine of $744.2 million is counted on the lowest price of wine, she added, meaning that the real expenditure for wine is still higher than that due to different prices of wine in the local market.

The amount of wine self distilled at home in Vietnam is estimated to reach tens of millions of liters a year, and is excluded in the above-mentioned number.

The average consumption of beer and wine in the world has not increased in the last ten years, around 6.2 liters of wine per capita a year.

Meanwhile, it has almost doubled in Vietnam in the same period. Each Vietnam people consumed an average of 3.8 liters of wine a year in 2003-05, and 6.6 liters a year in 2010, according to Hanh.

It is forecast that each Vietnamese people will drink an average of seven liters of wine a year in 2025.

Tran Thi Trang, deputy head of the legal department under the Ministry of Health, said at the meeting that alcoholic beverages have direct involvement in three kinds of cancer and seven other kinds of cancer indirectly.

She added Vietnam is compiling a law to prevent the ill effects of wine and beer.

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