Even though the government has had a policy to liberalise the alcoholic beverage industry since 1998, there has been little change in an industry which is still tightly controlled by a few producers, Nualnoi Treerat, an economist at Chulalongkorn University, said at a seminar yesterday.

Market barriers for new entries are still high for new producers and community enterprises, she pointed out.

"Charoen Sirivatthanapakdee still commands the largest share of the liquor and beer market," she said.

Before 1993, Boonrawd had a 90-per-cent market share. Then strong competition came from Charoen whose company brews Chang beer, resulting in a market expansion of 10 per cent from 1998 to 2003. The two rivals now control similar portions of the beer market.

Charoen has benefited greatly from having close connections with senior officials at the Finance Ministry as well as politicians, helping him to control the market, she argued.

With increased social awareness about the impact of alcohol, civil groups recently succeeded in forcing Charoen to drop a plan to list his business on the local stock market. Charoen has listed on the Singapore bourse instead. 

Wichit Chaitrong

The Nation