Ukraine: Ukrainian companies belonging to ZAO Ukrpivo, which holds 70% of Ukraine beer market, increased malt production in the first quarter of 2004 by 28.7% versus the same period 2002, APK-Inform posted on April 14. Ukrainian maltsters output 43.02 thousand tonnes of malt in January-March 2004, ZAO Ukrpivo reported.

The largest Ukraine malting producer is Slavutsk malting plant, which increased malt output in Q1 this year by 22.7% up to 20.06 thousand tonnes. The maltster has a production capacity of 70 thousand tonnes of malt per annum. On 8 March 2004 Baltic Beverage Holding (BBH) sold 90% of company‘s shares to Soufflet Group.

Berdichevsky malting plant increased 3.2 times its malt production up to 9.25 thousand tonnes. ZAT Sarmat increased its malt output by 0.8% to 1.51 thousand tonnes. Dnipro Brewery produced in the first quarter of 2004 4.18 thousand tonnes of malt, 2.6% more than in the same period last year.

According to analysts Ukraine’s demand in malt is 120 thousand tonnes per year.

16 April, 2004