Belarus plans to reduce the share of imported beer to 5%

August 10, Minsk / Olga Belyavskaya - BELTA /. Belarus plans to reduce the share of imported beer in the domestic market to 5% by 2015, Ivan Danchenko, Chairman of the Belgospischeprom concern, told a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers today, as reported by a BELTA correspondent. The head of Belgospischeprom explained that the main objectives of the program for the development of the brewing industry in Belarus for the next five-year period are to master the created capacities in the industry, increase exports, and reduce imports to 5% of the domestic market volume from the current 30%. As one of the measures to reduce beer imports, Ivan Danchenko proposed introducing licensing for beer from Ukraine. He recalled that the Belarusian side had conducted an anti-dumping investigation into Ukrainian beer. "The Ukrainian side admitted that it was dumping in order not to introduce an anti-dumping duty of about 11%," he explained. "Some Ukrainian brewing companies have undertaken price restrictions on beer supplies to Belarus." According to Ivan Danchenko, all this gives Belarus grounds to introduce licensing for beer imports from Ukraine. The relevant regulatory document has already been prepared. At the same time, the head of Belgospischeprom recalled that a beer import licensing mechanism is already in place in Kazakhstan. "We ask for support for our proposals in this area," he said. Ivan Danchenko also proposed to include the commodity item of beer in the Union State balance to equalize the balance of beer imports and exports from Russia. "Within the framework of the Union State, Russia and we constantly make forecast balances for sugar, meat, eggs, and milk. There is a proposal to introduce similar measures for beer. This would allow us to regulate beer imports from Russia," the head of Belgospischeprom noted. In addition, for import substitution of beer, domestic producers plan to additionally master the production of new names of this product in the near future. Thus, Brestskoye Pivo OJSC plans to produce "Obolon Svetloye," Krinitsa OJSC plans to produce "Oettinger," and Heineken company plans to produce "Zlaty Bazant Chernoe." -0-