A Move Forward Party MP said in a Facebook post that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) will likely rein in those considering applying for a permit to produce beer and other alcoholic beverages under the new ministerial regulation that came into effect on Wednesday Nov. 2, Matichon newspaper said.
Taopiphop Limjittrakorn, Move Forward Party’s MP for Bangkok, said if entrepreneurs thinking of starting a brewery study the new ministerial regulation in detail they will discover that in order to do so they have to pass EIA where a minimum production of 600,000 litres a month, or 7.2 million litres a year, is required for their application to reach the EIA board.
He asked what then would those who could only produce 1 to 7 million litres of beer a year do?
For wine it is the same, 600,000 litres a month, while liquor is 40,000 litres a month.
Taopiphop added that passing EIA is not at all easy to go by Tawandang German Brewery’s EIA papers that total over 2,000 pages.
A brewpub entrepreneur this week took a lot of documents along with him to go talk to the officials at the Excise Department thinking he would face red tape there but they simply told him to first clear EIA.
He then went to the EIA office and they told him that his production capacity is too low to get approval.
CAPTIONS:
Top: A woman drawing beer from a tap in a pub. Photo: Getty Images and published by BBC
Front Page: Move Forward Party MP Taopiphop Limjittrakorn. Photo: Thai Rath
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