Brewery Laments Alcohol Ban at WEF-EA: Minister

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Trade Minister Rachmat Gobel met with delegates from Dutch beer company Heineken on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on East Asia (WEF-EA), discussing among other things the government’s recently-imposed ban on beer sales at minimarkets.

The ban is stipulated in the Trade Ministry Regulation No. 6 Year 2015 on the control and supervision of the procurement, circulation and sales of alcoholic beverages, which took effect beginning April 17, 2015.

The minister’s special staffer for the cooperation of international organizations, Chris Kanter, who accompanied Rachmat in the meeting, said the largest shareholder of national brewery PT Multi Bintang Indonesia lamented the ban.

“They said the ban would decrease their profit by Rp1 trillion per year,” he said on Tuesday, April 21, 2015.

Chris admitted the potential losses stemming from the ban were huge, but reminded the delegates of the more serious impacts of uncontrollable alcohol consumption on the young generation.

“I hope they are just pretending that they will incur huge losses. Because if they were right, it would mean that our society was the one suffering losses from drinking alcohol worth Rp1 trillion,” he said.

Rachmat said Heineken could understand the motives behind the alcohol ban. “I think they can understand that. Losses are inevitable, but I told them don’t just look for their own profit, but they must also understand the social impacts, and he said he would support it,” he said.

In the talks, which took place on Sunday, April 19, 2015, the Heineken delegates were spearheaded by its global director for public and governmental affairs, Roland Verstappen, who was accompanied by Multi Bintang commissioner Cosmas Batubara, president director Michael Chin and corporate communications director Bambang Britono. 

PINGIT ARIA