According to the strategic market research company, Euromonitor International, Latin America consumes 15% of illegally-produced alcoholic beverages, with Mexico at the top of the list for volume consumed and the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Bolivia the leaders in per capita consumption.
According to Euromonitor consulting manager Lourdes Chavarría, many people will suffer from blindness and hundreds others will die when drinking alcohol that has been tampered with.
The Euromonitor illegal alcohol market study was carried out in 14 Latin American countries as well as eight African countries and two in Eastern Europe where consumption of illicit alcohol exists without health controls in 24 countries. It looked into counterfeit, contraband, illegal artisanal, tax leakage and surrogate forms of illegal alcohol in the region.
The global consumption of legal alcohol in 2017 was 222.8 million hectoliters and in the countries studied it was 42.3 million hectoliters, of which 10.9 million were illegal.
Within the Latin American countries studied, 42.5% of the drinks were illegal in Mexico, followed by Colombia with 16% and Peru with 12.6%. At the other end of the scale was Chile with 1.2%.
However the impact of the problem is greater in smaller countries such as the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Bolivia where the per capita consumption is above the regional average.
The study has shown that key drivers of the illegal market include uncontrolled residual ethanol volumes, price gaps and weak law enforcement. The researchers pinpoint that government regulations concerning legal alcohol sales and consumption also have indirectly created more opportunities for the market.
The research stresses that it is in everyone’s interest to bring unregulated alcohol into the legal, regulated sphere. Main reasons highlighted are because of human, societal and economic costs to each country. The poor are the most inclined to consume the cheaper alcohol and to suffer from health effects.
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Listin Diario
IARD
24 October 2018
