Kingway Brewery Holdings Ltd said it has secured a HK$200 million, 48-month term bank loan which will be used 'to finance the business expansion and the working capital requirement of the company,' AFX News Limited released November 11.

Chairman Ye Xuquan said one of the conditions of the loan is for Guangdong Holdings Group Ltd and/or Heineken-APB (China) Pte Ltd (HAPBC) to own directly or indirectly at least 51 pct of the company's issued ordinary shares. He did not identify the lender.

As of November 03, Guangdong Holdings controls 52.60 pct of the issued share capital of Kingway, while HAPBC holds a stake of approximately 21.43 pct.

Chinese beer maker Kingway Brewery Holdings Ltd. has signed an agreement to invest RMB 400 million in a new brewery in the southern province of Guangdong, China Knowledge released November 03. The new brewery located in Foshan City will boost the company’s total annual production capacity to 1.7 million t.

(1US$ = HK$7.8; CHY7.9)

Grupa Zywiec, Polish brewing group, in which Heineken NV holds a majority stake, has decided to close down its Bydgoszcz brewery after Grupa Zywiec failed to find a buyer for the unit, AFX News posted on November 7th.

Grupa Zywiec commented: “Increasing competition on the Polish beer market forces the beer manufacturers to reduce and optimize production costs on a permanent basis”. However, 'in spite of extensive efforts', it added, 'it has become clear that production costs in Bydgoszcz Brewery cannot be reduced to acceptable levels'.

Inside the EU Germany and the U.K. still have a large open malt demand. Prices were around the mark of EUR 400.- at the end of October, but run the risk of further increases after the new price explosion in barley markets.

In international markets Taiwan issued a purchase tender for 64,000 tons of malt, Vietnam is looking for several 10,000 tons. Most other buyers are interested in smaller lots, because they need additional quantities after excellent beer sales, or they keep testing the market in disbelief of the situation.

Russia and the Ukraine are lucky to have become almost self-sufficient over the past years, however, Russia will need some small imports during 2007.

China managed to establish itself as a malt exporter, helped by lack of attractive offers from other origins, but their dependence on imported barley will restrict also their possibilities in the months to come.

There have only been minor changes of crop statistics since analysts’ report from October 2, the IGC puts the EU barley crop at 54.4 million tonnes. Internal feed barley markets are very firm, because of larger feed demand. According to analysts, due to the situation in Australia and the Ukraine EU feed barley exports will probably accelerate and lead to very tight supplies at the end of the crop year.

A price comparison: Intervention price EUR 101.31, market FOB Creil EUR 130.-, FOB Rouen EUR 147.-. The EU has liberated 476,000 tons of their intervention stocks of 1.5 million tonnes for sale to domestic markets in order to dampen the bullish market trend.