(4 Jul 2025)
RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rawalpindi, Pakistan – 23 June 2025
1. Various of workers packing alcohol bottles
2. Mid of liquor barrels
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Isphanyar Bandhara, Chairman of Murree Brewery:
"Other than being good rewarding business, it is also more rewarding for the government of Pakistan, for example just for yours audience’s benefit, if we are making a dollar, for example, out of that dollar 70 pence or 80 pence is going to the government, yes, we are left with 20 pence to run the show."
4. Various of boiling tub boiling Barley
5. Pan of plant making beers
6. Close of sign board reading (English): "Ziemann 1966"
7. Various of staff checking quality
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Isphanyar Bandhara, Chairman of Murree Brewery:
"I tell my staff of about 2,200 people that we cannot just sit on our laurels by selling alcohol. Its a restricted market, so we have to rely on and focus more on the non-alcoholic side, like juices and non-alcoholic beers. And we have to compete with international brands and as well as local brands, so that’s where I think I would like to flex my muscles and take credit rather than being a liquor baron."
9. Various of beer cans under process
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Isphanyar Bandhara, Chairman of Murree Brewery;
"We can’t just force someone to drink an inferior drink, as I said, if the German embassy and the Chinese embassy and lot of European embassies are my customers for beer, I think I am comfortable on my quality."
11. Various of soft drink cans in process
12. Wide of a worker loading
STORYLINE:
A pungent fog of malt and yeastiness hangs over Murree Brewery, Pakistan’s biggest and oldest producer of alcoholic drinks.
The company is an outlier in a country where alcohol is outlawed for everyone except non-Muslims, who make up some 9 million people out of 241 million. Pakistan, an Islamic republic, banned booze for Muslims in the 1970s.
But Murree Brewery has strong financials despite the prohibition, thanks to its history, scant competition and a small, thirsty and predominantly elite consumer base.
But the government exerts significant control over the sale and marketing of alcoholic beverages through red tape and high taxes, pushing the brewery’s chairman Isphanyar Bandhara to expand the company’s footprint in Pakistan’s non-alcoholic drinks industry, which, although bigger, is more crowded and less lucrative.
“Even I tell my staff of about 2,200 that we cannot sit on our laurels by selling alcohol,” said Bandhara, the third generation of his family to run the 165-year-old business that was founded by the British.
“It’s a restricted market, so we have to rely and focus more on the non-alcoholic side. That’s where I think I would like to flex my muscles and take credit, rather than being a liquor baron.”
The brewery already manufactures energy drinks, juices and malted beverages, but they are not as well-known as products from big international brands.
However, this part of the business is registering double-digit growth, and Bandhara wants to cash in on Pakistan’s youth bulge. Around 64% of the population is under 30.
Pakistan’s government determines the brewery’s alcohol prices, points of sale and customer base. Last year it took $35 million from the brewery’s revenue in taxes. The company cannot advertise its alcoholic beverages or expand that part of the business inside Pakistan. Online shopping is unavailable.
Nonetheless, stacked on pallets at Murree Brewery on a recent day were boxes of booze.
Nobody from Hui was available to comment.
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