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Romania's beer market in 2016 was in line with the previous year level at 15.8 million hectoliters, as did per capita consumption, which stood at 80 liters; these figures place Romania 7th by consumption among European countries, general manager of the Romanian Brewers Association Julia Leferman announced on Wednesday.
The beer industry generates over 500 million euro annually in state budget revenues - directly and through related activities, she said.
According to Leferman, the local production exceeds 97 percent of domestic consumption and 70 percent of the brewing ingredients come from Romanian agriculture. As a result, over 10,000 Romanians have a job in agriculture, given that one job in the beer industry generates two in agriculture.
The beer industry significantly influences employment by creating about 85,000 jobs nationwide.
Beer exports in 2016 followed a slightly downward trend, dropping 0.08 million hectoliters to a total of 0.42 million hectoliters.
Imports on the other hand registered a slight increase of 0.09 million hectoliters from 2015, reaching a total of 0.44 million hectoliters, yet Romanian beer fans remained loyal to domestic brands. Germany, Hungary, Poland, France, Holland, the Czech Republic, specifically countries with a robust brewing culture and a significant local production, are the ones to export small amounts of beer to Romania.
Investments in 2016 advanced 14.2 million euro from 2015 to 69.7 million euro, with aggregate investments by the Association members since their entry on the market reaching 1.4 billion euro.
Despite a mild decrease in the number of beer production jobs across all members of the Romanian Brewers Association from 3,700 in 2015 to 3,600 in 2016, the beer industry remains an important driver to the economy and contributes to the creation of 85,000 jobs nationwide.
The members of the Romanian Brewers Association are Bergenbier, Heineken, United Romanian Breweries, Bereprod, Ursus Breweries and Martens, alongside the microbrewery the Beer Clinic. The six manufacturers jointly supply over 80 pct of the beer consumed in Romania. Also under the Association umbrella are representatives of raw material producers: Soufflet Malt Romania and the Hop Producers Association. As of 2008 the Romanian Brewers Association is a member of the Brewers of Europe organization, founded in 1958 in Brussels.
