Egyptians consumed LE6 billion in soft drinks in 2010, reaching a high since the industry began, a senior official in the soft drink industry said. Adel Garas, managing director for PepsiCo Egypt, said the soft drink industry grew by 15 percent in 2010 and attributed the increase in consumption to an improvement in Egyptian's standards of living. Garas told Al-Masry Al-Youm that although the soft drink consumption in Egypt increased, it was still nowhere near that of the US and Europe, where the per capital annual consumption is five times that of Egypt. According to a study published last year by the International Tax and Investment Center and Oxford Economics, five main companies soft drink companies contribute to about 1 percent of the GDP annually. In 2009, soft drink industry jobs increased from 113,000 to 173,000. They constituted 1 percent of the total employment opportunities in Egypt during the past five years. Translated from the Arabic Edition
