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The crisis in Greece turned out to be healthy. The high excise duties lead to the gradual decrease in the demand and consumption of alcohol in the country in the last five years. This shows a study held by the department for economic analysis ICAP, member of the group Global Finance. The study shows that the alcohol market is decreasing by 4% each year since 2004.

Currently the imported alcohol has the largest share of the market of alcoholic beverages. The most widely preferred imported alcohol is the whisky with 40% market share, while from the local production the Ouzo has 25% of the total consumption of alcohol in the country. With the lowest demand are alcoholic beverages like vodka (10%), gin (4%), liquor (8%), and the brandy and rum have the minimum market share. The production of alcoholic beverages is registering a decrease since the middle of 1980s when the Greek consumers in compliance with the European standards start to gradually switch from the goods produced by the local industry to others imported beverages.

Greece preserves the exclusive production of ouzo as a traditional alcoholic beverage until today. “The market is in recession. In spite of the increased by 4-5% production prices, the commercial sites for sale of alcohol are registering a decrease in the turnover by 20% compared to the same period last year. People don’t have the same purchasing power as they did several years ago and this reflects also in our industry”, says Evangelos Mitchos, president of the Greek federation of the dealers of wines and liquors. The organization includes over two thousand members – importers, producers and retail and wholesale dealers.

The ministry of finance has provided for a new twenty percent increase of the alcoholic beverages for this year, which will be imposed after the introduction of the new tax reform in March. This supposes that the trend of decrease of the consumption of alcohol will continue in the near future as well.