Heineken is set to open the first major beer brewery in Dubai, an Islamic city known for tight regulations on alcohol sales and consumption.
The project will be developed by the Dutch beer producer and Dubai-based Maritime and Mercantile International after securing all necessary permits, according to a Bloomberg report.
Heineken has already been supplying Dubai with its beer for almost 20 years, Bloomberg reported, but with booming levels of tourism in the city, the brewery is being developed to stay on top of the growing demand.
Dubai is an Islamic city in which state religion forbids the consumption of alcohol, which is widely considered there to be harmful to health and well-being.
While the city has allowed for the sale and consumption of alcohol for a number of decades with different regulations, there was previously a 30 percent tax on alcohol.
However, the tax was scrapped in January 2023 to encourage greater rates of tourism to the city, Reuters reported.
The city also changed its policy on personal alcohol licenses, something any residents must have in order to drink at home.
Previously, a liquor license cost 270 AED (equivalent to around 73 dollars) a year, but the licenses are now free, according to the liquor supplier African and Eastern.
Bringing a Heineken brewery to its soil therefore seems to be another move by Dubai to welcome more tourists to its city.
The construction of the brewery is scheduled to begin late in 2025 and the plan is currently set for completion in 2027.
Heineken will reportedly also produce other labels such as Kingfisher, Amstel and Birra Moretti.
According to the Bloomberg, the company also hopes to expand its workforce to 190 full-time employees from the current 60.
Newsweek has contacted Heineken and Maritime and Mercantile International via email for comment.
The United Arab Emirates welcomed its first brewery in 2023 in its capital city Abu Dhabi, according to the Middle East Eye. The Craft by Side Hustle brewery opened in December last year.
Dubai has an increasing rate of tourism, with almost 15 million travelling to visit the city between January and October in 2024, according to the city's government statistics. This was up from 13.9 million that went to Dubai in the same time period in 2023.
Some 20 percent of the tourists going Dubai this year also came from Western Europe, the highest proportion of visitors across the globe.
According to the Euro News, Europe is the world's biggest beer-drinking region on the globe, having nine of the top 10 beer-drinking countries.
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