Scotch whisky growth is picking up again after stalling last autumn, industry leader David Frost has said,
“The mood in the industry is that the bottoming out has happened and we are looking at doing a lot better in 2016,” Mr Frost said, adding that sales figures for the run-in to Christmas were not yet available.
The chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association said: “Yes there is some economic uncertainty out there in emerging markets but the long-term trends are really good, whatever happens to global growth the demographic bulge is really important to us.” In Kenya, for instance, over half the population was under 20.
On China he said: “The high-end gifting culture is probably not coming back anytime soon, for political reasons, so people are looking at more normal means of distributing the product, going out to Chinese cities and getting distribution working.”
Mr Frost said the recent decision by the World Trade Organisation to initiate a dispute procedure over discriminatory taxes and monopolies in Colombia was “very significant” in a fast-growing market, and only the third WTO action of its kind after India and the Philippines.
On last week’s news that Hunter Laing plans a new distillery on Islay, he commented: “We are aware of 30 or 40 plans for new distilleries, some will come to fruition, some may not, but people are reacting to the trends out there and investing.”
Mr Frost, with Deputy First Minister John Swinney, was opening a new headquarters in Edinburgh’s Quartermile district. He said: “We collaborate with the Scottish Government on a huge range of things, and this is symbolic of that cooperation.” He said the Scottish elections would be a “break-point”, but this year should see the SWA produce a refreshed environmental strategy. “We are unique in having a collective industry strategy around environmental targets.”
Mr Frost added: “We remain interested in the EU referendum. We are not being aggressive about it, but we do believe it is important for the business model to stay in the EU.”
Mr Swinney said the industry contributed £3billion directly and £5bn indirectly to the Scottish economy, and had risen to the government’s challenge of making the food and drink sector and even more significant player.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here