Fewer people in Denmark buy their beer in the shops at the German border, after the tax ministry in July 2013 lowered tax on beer and soft drinks in Denmark, EPN finance newspaper reports.

Beverage sales dropped by 3.6 percent last year, according to figures by audit firm Deloitte, which provides annual border trade accounts to the tax ministry.

Tax cuts on beer by 15 percent caused border sales to drop by 2.6 percent last year.

Likewise, border sales of soft drinks dropped by 5.2 percent after the tax within Denmark was lowered by 50 percent in 2013. The 'soda tax' was finally removed in January 2014.

DK sales up
While the border trade is going down, beer sales within Denmark increased in 2013 for the first time in ten years.

The sudden increase led breweries to call for further tax cuts, but this met with resistance from tax minister Morten Østergaard.

"I don't want to comment on unofficial numbers on border trade, but I want to confirm that the government has no plans to lower the tax further on these goods," Østergaard told EPN.