Czech brewers produced 3.98 million hectolitres of beer in Q1, a growth of 6 % from a year ago, director of the Czech Brewing and Malting Association Jan Vesely told CTK on April 25, according to The Prague Daily Monitor.

Data on Czech beer sales abroad are not available yet but in view of the long and severe winter in the country exports may have been the driving force of the growth, said Vesely. Weather has a great effect on beer sales.

Last year, domestic beer sales fell by 5 % in Q1 against 2004, and the very cold February was the reason.The decline was not offset by exports, and Q1 output was down 2 % year-on-year in 2005.

This year, beer output increased by 3.1 % in January, by 7.1 % in February, and by 6.7 % in March.Beer exports totalled 3.1 million hectolitres last year, a growth of 17 % from 2004.Overall, Czech beer output totalled 19.07 million hectolitres, and was up 1.7 %. Exports accounted for 16 %, compared to the world average of 6 %.

The global brewing giant InBev refused to comment on reports it is planning to acquire a 20 % stake in China's Yanjing Brewery, AFX reported on April 21.

KBC Securities cited Chinese reports that the acquisition price would be around 285 mln usd, or 70 eur per hectolitre. Yanjing is one of China's largest beer producers behind market leader Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd.

The industry analysts commented that that Yanjing is one of the last big brewers not to have an international partner.

In January 2006, InBev acquired Fujian Sedrin, the largest brewer in the southeastern Chinese state of Fujian, for EUR 614 million.

The largest Russian malting company, ОАО "Russky Solod", controlled by Avangard Bank (Russia), has attracted a credit of EUR 10 million. The credit is granted by Standard Bank for a period of 4 years. The purpose of the loan is to refinance credits extended by Avangard Bank for the construction of malting plant in Orel town. This year Russky Solod attracted EUR 25 million from western financial companies.

“Russky Solod" is the biggest producer of Pilsen malt in Russia and one of the largest in Europe. The company owns three malting plants in Moscow, Orlovsk and Voronej regions. The total production comes to more than 300,000 tonnes of malt per year.

In March 2006, according to the statistical data, Ukrainian enterprises produced 34.3 thousand tonnes of malt, which is a higher output level by 11% than that of February 2006.

In comparison with March 2005 the volume of malt production increased by 5.3 thousand tonnes (by 18%).

For the 9 months of 2005/06 the malt production in Ukraine was of 281.7 thousand tonnes. In the same period of 2004/05 there were produced 222 thousand tonnes of malt.

The 2006 sold ahead position for the US hop industry is up nine points from the 2005 position, United States Department of Agriculture posted on March 27, 2006. The following years’ positions are mostly higher than the 2005 survey, but lower when compared with preceding surveys.

US sold ahead position for 2006 crop is 40,178,989 pounds of hops (75.93 % of crop); for 2007 crop 20,327,911 pounds (28.42%) for 2008 14,034,657 pounds (26.52%); for 2009 8,767,139 pounds (16.57%)

The survey data are reported by hop growers from Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Data from the survey are used to calculate a percentage and quantity of the US hop crop sold for 2006, and following years.