Thais ranked world’s 4th heaviest drinkers

BANGKOK, February 4 (TNA) - Thai drinkers have been ranked the world’s fourth heaviest alcohol consumers, after those in South Korea, Russia and the Philippines respectively. The ranking was reported on Tuesday by the Korea Times Newspaper and the Quartz website, based on the latest survey on alcohol consumers in 44 countries conducted by Euromonitor. According to the survey, South Korean drinkers became the world’s heaviest alcohol consumers, as they drank double as much liquor as those in Russia, where it is best known as the Land of Vodka. The survey showed South Korean drinkers consumed 13.7 shots of alcohol weekly on average, followed, respectively, by those in Russia at 6.3 shots, the Philippines at 5.4 shots, Thailand at 4.5 shots and Japan at 4.4 shots, while those in the United States were ranked at the world's 10th place at 3.3 shots weekly on average. The survey found that the main factor making South Korean drinkers become the world's heaviest alcohol consumers is Soju, the country's most popular alcoholic beverage which grabs the largest market share at 97 per cent and even twice as many sale volumes as other alcoholic drinks on the world market. The heaviest alcohol consumption, associated with higher crime rate, has become a social problem in South Korea, prompting the South Korean government to have launched a campaign aimed to reduce the alcohol consumption among South Korean people since 2011.(TNA)