Romanians consumed last year less coffee as compared to 2013, mainly due to higher prices, from 426 thousands of tonnes to 417 thousands, shows a PwC Romania study released on Thursday.
Thus, according to a PwC Romania press release, the Romanian coffee market value was close to EUR 420 million last year, a slight decrease as compared to 2013.
As of 2009, coffee price started to grow, increasing by 30 percent over 2009 to 2013. One of the main causes for this boost was the high taxation level in the industry.
On the other hand, Romania saw an annual coffee consumption level on the rise at a 9 percent rate between 2000 and 2009, amid the economic growth registered during this period which doubled the amount of coffee consumed annually.
As of 2009, the Romanian coffee market shrank due to the economic crisis. Thus, the market contracted by 8 percent between 2009 and 2011, afterwards staying relatively constant.
Nevertheless, Romania ranks 26 in Europe on average coffee consumption, with an annual per capita consumption of 2.3 kg, compared to the EU average of 4kg per capita.
According to PwC Romania representatives, coffee excise cut could lead to a price reduction, boosting consumption and encouraging the developing of the coffee and coffee products market in Romania.
Such a measure would have a neutral impact on the budget revenue, the 0.2 percent decrease of collected revenue from excise duty being compensated horizontally by the other taxes collected – which are forecast to reach RON 64 million (EUR 14.5 million) – following the development of the coffee industry.
Romania is one of the few EU member states still applying excises to coffee (alongside Denmark, Germany, Croatia, Belgium and Latvia).
In terms of budget revenues, excise revenues for coffee in 2013 were as high as RON 51.7 million (EUR 11.7 million), 0.2 percent of the total excise revenues of RON 21.1 billion (EUR 4.8 billion).
