The Saudi milk market is expected to grow by an estimated SR200 million to reach SR3.6 billion by the end of this year, an Arabic language daily reported Saturday, quoting a study. Al-Eqtisadiah said "Tetrapak" a company specializing in manufacturing milk and dairy product cartons conducted a study that revealed total demand for milk as used in all sold dairy products, i.e., pure milk, concentrated milk, flavored milk, reached 870 million liters and recorded sales worth SR3.6 billion toward the end of last year. Two economists interviewed by Al-Eqtisadiah last December forecast that the total dairy market volume would reach SR13 billion by the end of 2007, with some SR3 billion generated by exports alone. Saeed Al-Sheikh, a senior economist at National Commercial Bank, said Saudis spend SR353 per capita on a total of 1.4 million cartons of dairy products produced by some 60 companies in the country in a market that has an estimated value of SR8 billion toward the end of 2003.
