The president of the Portuguese Association of Non-Alcoholic Refreshing Beverages (PROBEB) highlights, in an interview with Lusa, that the tax on the soft drinks sector had a negative impact, causing losses of 1,450 million euros in the economy.
An independent study conducted by Porto Business School (PBS) on the PROBEB ecosystem concluded that the tax on sugary drinks had a negative, structural and persistent economic impact on the non-alcoholic drinks sector in Portugal.
“This is a sector that matters to the Portuguese economy, it is not a niche, it is a very important sector”, says Márcio Cruz, highlighting the “negative impact that the sugar tax has had over the years” in this area.
“In addition to being discriminatory, it has had a very negative impact, therefore it can be concluded that after eight years [entre 2017 e 2023] this sector lost, given that the impact of the tax is 1,450 million” euros on the Portuguese economy, “practically a year”, “the possibility of integrating more than 1,100 jobs in this sector was lost and 141 million euros of tax revenue were lost with the introduction of this tax”, summarizes the person in charge.
This is a study that quantifies “with an academic method the economic contribution of the entire PROBEB ecosystem and measures the impact on three structuring factors in the sector”: the first is the tax on sugary drinks, there is another aspect which is the part of parallel imports and also assesses the issue of the impact that tourism brings, or has brought in recent years to this sector, explains the president of the association.
Therefore, “with the results of this study, an ecosystem that generated around 1,550 million of production, 464 million of added value [VAB]which supports more than 7,700 jobs and contributes R$150 million in revenue [fiscal]” in 2024 “it is effectively a sector that matters to the economy and is not a niche”, reinforces Márcio Cruz.
This is a “tax that is extremely punitive and discriminatory for this sector, taking into account everything that […] has been doing, either with self-regulation commitments, or because of what it did from 2013 to 2023, which reduced the sugar content by more than 50%, where today around 80% of the volume of this sector is in products with low sugar content, or below 5 grams per 100 milliliters, which has a quite large impact”, states the president of PROBEB.
“We have a tax that applies exclusively to this sector in a discriminatory manner, even on products with a low sugar content, leaving other products untaxed”, he laments.
On the other hand, “there is also the competitiveness part, we also cannot forget, with a phenomenon of increased parallel imports, I would say that they are unfair competition for our members who have companies here, whether national or multinational companies and that generate employment and that create an impact on our country”, he points out.
This unfair competition “has an impact that has been able to be measured and that, in fact, our members often have difficulty growing year after year and, through the tax, we see this increase in parallel imports in our country and that also has a very significant impact and is increasing, I would say that this is not competition, it is market distortion with those who comply with the rules and are penalized”, highlights Márcio Cruz.
According to the sector, the tax on soft drinks indiscriminately penalizes products with zero or low sugar, including those that use low-calorie sweeteners.
The study will be presented on Monday.
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