Heineken's CEO was speaking at this week's Financial Markets Conference in Vietnam

Heineken's CEO has told analysts he is committed to improving the brewer's margins, "but it is not an obsession".

Jean-François van Boxmeer said margins are important at the local level, where regional directors work hard to improve them. However, he said on a global scale, the major focus is "very much about your footprint".

"You always have to place any margin story in a graph of 20 to 30 years," van Boxmeer said. "We've been around for 450 years so I am confident it should not be an obsession. But, we are committed to improving [margins]."

Van Boxmeer was speaking at Heineken's Financial Markets Conference in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week. The two-day conference is a chance for global analysts to question the group's senior management about their future plans.

Heineken is in line to become the second-biggest brewer in the world once global leader Anheuser-Busch InBev completes its expected acquisition of the current second-biggest SABMiller.

The Asia-Pacific beer market and Heineken - Focus

Answering a question on AB InBev and the effect of scale on margins, van Boxmeer said: "I don't think we go after the margins of AB InBev."

"It's not just about being big and you have big margins. You can be big and have lousy margins."

Earlier, the CEO had said: "A company like ours - the second biggest but a lot smaller than the first - we have to be overweight in the premium segment, which gives better margins."