China's Kingway Brewery Holdings Ltd. said on February 24 it planned to build a beer plant in the western city Chengdu for up to US$100 million, according to Reuters. The new plant would be built in Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone and would be developed in two phases, the brewer said in a statement.

The first phase, which would take 18 months to complete, would involve US$50 million investment with an annual production capacity of 200,000 tonnes.

Kingway said its annual beer production capacity would rise to 1.5 million tonnes on completion of the first phase of development. It gave no other details. The brewer said it would fund the project by internal resources and bank borrowings.

Shares of Kingway have risen about 23 percent over the past three months to end at HK$3.45 on Thursday. (US$=HK$7.8)

Beer, wine, and spirit-based drinks available for consumption all increased in the 2005 calendar year, Statistics New Zealand announced on February 23. Beer still remained the most popular type of alcoholic beverage in New Zealand, accounting for 68.8 % of the alcohol available for consumption. While beer with a strength of 4.35 % or less was still the most common beer available, the availability of higher strength beer has been increasing. It represented almost 30 percent of the 316 million litres of beer available in 2005.

Bottled beer made up 53.6 % of domestically produced beer in 2005, exceeding the previous highest level (50.8 %) in 1982. By contrast, bulk (tap) beer now accounts for just over a quarter of the beer produced, compared with almost half of the beer produced in 1991. Total domestic production was down slightly from the 2004 level, to 91.6 percent of all beer available for consumption. In 2005, wine provided 19.5 percent of the available alcohol, with domestic production making up three-quarters of the 89 million litres of wine available in New Zealand.

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) released on February 23 its Pool Return Outlook (PRO) for the 2005-06 crop year. Compared to the January PRO, the Pool A and B feed barley PROs are unchanged, while the designated barley PRO is down C$1 per tonne.

Note: PROs are the CWB's estimate of crop year returns. Farmers who use PROs to make marketing decisions are advised that unusual weather in importing or exporting countries and other changes in market conditions could dramatically affect the price forecasts. PROs are not price guarantees and should not be confused with initial payments. PROs also do not represent CWB offer values for prospective sales transactions nor sales values for actual transactions.

PRO commentary
2005-06 PRO

Feed barley
Pool A - Sales of this pool are essentially complete.

Pool B - While feed barley prices have shown some strength in recent weeks, export competition is limiting price increases. The outlook for global barley production in 2006-07 is also a negative factor influencing the longer-term price outlook.

Designated barley
The global malting barley market remains under pressure, given ample supplies of Australian malting barley. The strengthening Canadian dollar is also having a negative impact on returns.

Efes Beverage Group (EBG) is planning together with OAO Krasny Vostok Agro to organise production on growing, drying and processing brewing hops in Tatarstan. The announcement was made by EBG president, Ahmet Boyacioglu, on February 22.

According to him, Tatarstan has a favourable climate for growing hops and corresponding specialists are coming on the place to study the question in the near future. EBG expects to produce enough hops to sell to other Russian brewers as well.

Besides necessary investments are planed to be made by EBG in order to produce malting barley together with Krasny Vostok Agro. Efes is producing malting barley in Turkey since 1980.