EU malt export licence bookings July 1 – October 26, 2004, are 857,000 tonnes. If the pace of fixations remained unchanged, totals for the crop year 2004/05 could arrive at 2.5 – 2.6 million tonnes. In 2003/04 bookings were 2.4 million tonnes in the old EU. In the calendar year 2003 malt exports of the new members (PL-CZ-SK-HU) were 270,000 tonnes to countries outside the present EU borders. Therefore total exports of 2.6-2.7 million tonnes are needed to put the present campaign at par with the combined sales of last year, market analysts revealed.

09 November, 2004