Pivovary Staropramen-owned Pivovar Ostravar is to emerge Italy as the second EU export market, after the brewery started exporting beer in UK in late 2004, selling its beers in more than 1,000 outlets.

Pivovar Ostravar has an annual capacity of 500,000 hl of beer and is located in northern Moravia

The brewery is based in Ostravar, northern Moravia, and produces around 500,000 hectolitres of beer a year. InBev-owned Pivovar Staropramen controls nearly 14% of the Czech beer market and competes on the domestic market with Plzensky Prazdroj which has the largest beer sales in the Czech Republic and exports beer to almost 50 countries all over the world.

The former Guinness Brewery in London has been bought by property developer Brixton Plc for 47 million pounds and will be converted into industrial units and warehousing, The Scotsman learned August 21 from Brixton Plc.

Brixton is buying the Park Royal site in northwest London from Diageo and plans to develop more than 500,000 sq ft of commercial space from 2007.

"This is just the type of scheme that Brixton has been looking to re-invest into post the 500 million pounds of sales earlier this year," said Brixton Chief Executive Tim Wheeler.

Brixton sold 84 properties to Dunedin Property Ltd for 460 million pounds in May.

Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks business with an outstanding collection of alcohol beverage brands across spirits, wine and beer categories. These brands include: Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Baileys, J&B, Captain Morgan, Cuervo, Tanqueray, Crown Royal and Beaulieu Vineyard and Sterling Vineyards wines.

Total barley free market refunds granted for 2006/07 campaign are zero, the AgriNews Feedgrain Report of August 17 stressed. Total intervention sales equate zero. 5,000 t export licences were granted between August 9 and August 15. All licences granted for the 2006/2007 campaign totaled 47,000 t (an increase of 5,000 t from last week) against 713,000 t same time last year.

Total exports for malt equate 318,000 t (increase 10t for the last week) against 349,000 t same time last year. Total barley imports to August 15th stood at 176,000 t (increased by 13,000 t on a weekly basis) against 63,000 t same time last year.

Brussels granted 11,000 t import barley under the special import tariff. Daily import tariff is at €93. Feed barley import tariff quota for January/December 2006 for 143,000 t at €16 still available. Import tariffs (based on US barley prices) are presently in force.