Alcohol, Legislation, Lithuania, Markets and Companies, Society, Taxation
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Thursday, 18.04.2024, 02:19
Alcohol sales down in Lithuania but too early for conclusions
"The initial numbers, which possibly show a tendency of declining
alcohol consumption are optimistic and give hope of fighting the problem even
more efficiently in the future. Nevertheless, applauding and assessing the
results is still a bit too early. To be able to draw conclusions, we need to
conduct a more thorough analysis, not just look at a single number that possibly
shows decline," Lina
Businskaite-Sriubene, adviser to Lithuania's Health Minister Aurelijus Veryga, told BNS.
In her words, it is important to consider other factors and measures that
were taken to reduce alcohol consumption levels. Since last November, Lithuania
bans promotion of discounts on alcoholic beverages, organizing games,
campaigns, competitions and lotteries that would encourage acquisition or
consumption of alcohol.
Tadas Povilauskas, senior analyst at SEB bank,
also said that the data from the State Tax Inspectorate lead to preliminary
conclusions about dropping alcohol consumption.
"I believe that the Health Ministry's objective of reducing alcohol
consumption is being implemented, of course, we do not know and still cannot
assess the changes of the volume of shopping in Latvia by residents of northern
Lithuania and the changes in southwestern Lithuania that borders Poland. It is
a fact that shopping abroad has increased, however, we still have a certain
overall minus (in alcohol consumption)," Povilauskas told BNS.
Data collected by the Nielsen polling company suggests that residents
purchased less alcohol in retail stores. According to the Nielsen results, the
amount of alcohol sold in stores fell by 11.8% this year, while the value of
the purchased beverages went up by 2.4% due to increase in prices.
According to the tax data, the only increase of 14.4% was reported in
purchases of hard liquor from excise warehouses in the first half of 2017
year-on-year, while wine sales went down by 0.4%, intermediate products
including fortified wine fell by 3.4% and beer by 14.3%. In March through June,
the period when higher excise duties were applied, purchase volumes of
intermediate products from excise warehouses fell 86.7%, hard liquor by 56.5%,
wine by 53.6% and beer by 12.9%.
Data from Statistics Lithuania suggests that every resident of the country
over the age of 15 last year consumed an average of 13.2 liters of absolute (100-percent)
legal alcohol, which is a decline by 0.8 liters from 2015. According to data
from the World Health Organization, alcohol consumption in Lithuania stands at
16.3 liters of alcohol per resident of 15 and older, however, the figure dies
not include illicit alcohol.