Heineken CEO concerned about Russia boycott

While Russia is an important market to Heineken, the company has felt little of the tension between that country and the West over the situation in the Ukraine, says CEO Jean-Francois van Boxmeer. Van Boxmeer went on to say that they are, like everyone else, concerned about developments as unrest is always bad for trade, Het Parool reports. So far, Heineken has not suffered under the trade sanctions against Russia, though the Russian market has waned for sometime over a variety of reasons. The multinational company produces its own beer in local breweries there, and is not dependent on exports, making Russia's boycott of European imports of little consequence to Heineken. The Russian market has been bad for some time for different reasons, according to Het Parool. Van Boxmeer says that Heineken has felt no effect from the recent unrest. A bigger concern for the company is that they expect weaker market conditions from Western Europe in the near future. Last year they did well in that important region, where price levels are relatively high - even in the second half of the year. That led into the first half of 2014, where Heineken profited from the warmer weather in Western Europe as well as the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, which increased beer consumption worldwide. The remainder of the year does not look so good according to van Boxmeer. The volume growth during the rest of the year will achieve a greater part in emerging markets. Though the lower prices paid for beer will cause the revenue for the second half of the year to level off relative to the first 6 months of 2014. https://twitter.com/ThudderWicks/status/502020233478279168