The world’s $236 billion ‘booze up’

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 9

The world’s $236 billion ‘booze up’

NZPA-Reuter Geneva World alcohol consumption has doubled in the last 20 years to an estimated annual total of SNZ236 billion, and a few multinational beer and spirit makers now dominate markets, according to a United Nations report. The report was commissioned by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development as a backup for a planned United Nations campaign to alert the world to the problems of alcohol.

It criticises the advertising campaigns of multinationals in the Third World where consumers are more vulnerable. and hits out at the use of profits from other lines to cut prices and boost over-all alcohol consumption. Neither agency agreed to release the report after its authors. Frederick Clairmonte and John Cavanagh, completed it last October.

Officials declined to comment on the reason, but sources close to W.H.O. said that it was because of the report's explicit criticism of the multinationals. The W.H.O, is to debate the problems' of alcohol at its annual assembly in May. "By the mid-60s, a handful of giant corporations had achieved market dominance in most countries in the beer and distilled spirits sectors." said the report. In many countries alcoholic drinks had pene-

trated even the remotest rural areas as a result of what it called a prodigious increase in availability.

Consumption was’ encouraged by wide advertising. on which some SNZ2.7 billion was spent in 1981. Much advertising by multinationals was also deployed in developing countries where rural consumers and new urban migrants are far more vulnerable to their allurements.

The report called such promotional efforts disturbing, because of their harmful effects on health, especially among women and young people. "There is growing medical evidence that women may develop liver cirrhosis from alcohol consumption faster than men.” it said.

According to the reporf. about half of all alcoholic beverages were consumed in Europe. Luxemburg was the biggest world consumer with 18.4 litres of pure alcohol per head in 1980, followed by France with 14.8 and Spain with 14.1. Twenty-seven multinational corporations controlled the market, and most of them sold at least SNZI.4 billion worth of alcohol in 1980. said the study.

Nine of what it called "the big 27" were based in Britain, five in the United States, four in Canada two each in Japan, France, West Germany and South Africa, and one in the Netherlands.