Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar NP Wednesday said it is reviewing a decision by an Italian appeals court that stripped it of its rights to the 'Budweiser' trademark in Italy, according to MarketWatch, March 23.

"At this moment our lawyers are reviewing the issue and we have no further comment," said Petr Samec, spokesman for Budejovicky Budvar.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. said an Italian appeals court had ruled in Anheuser-Busch's favor, ordering the cancellation of three registered trademarks held by Czech brewer.
The two companies are entangled in more than 40 trademark disputes around the world, over rights to the 'Budweiser' trademark. The companies have disputed the trademark since 1911.

Anheuser-Busch holds exclusive rights to the 'Budweiser' trademark in the U.S., although elsewhere the trademark variously belongs to one or other of the breweries, depending on local court rulings.
Budejovicky Budvar uses the 'Budvar' brand within the Czech Republic and abroad uses mainly the 'Budweiser' brand for the beer.

Both brewers named their beer 'Budweiser' after the Czech city Ceske Budejovice, called Budweis in German.

Chongqing Brewery Co., Ltd. sold CNY 1.813 billion worth of beer of 955,000 kiloliters in 2006, jumping 21.62% and 29.05% over the previous year, revealed its 2006 report, according to SinoCast China Business Daily News, March 23.

The net profits hit up to CNY 148 million, a surge of 88.16% over 2005 and the earnings per share were CNY 0.52 at the same time.

The company intended to distribute three shares plus CNY 2 cash (including tax) for every ten shares to all shareholders.

The brewer hailed the fastest sales growth in Chongqing Municipality, the largest city in southwestern China, and Zhejiang, an eastern coastal province in the country, in the year, 25.52% and 33.12% respectively.

The Chongqing-based company will further strengthen regional integration, build regional profit center, and improve brand construction to reply to new competition and challenge.

Soufflet Romania, a subsidiary of French malt producer Soufflet, is to build a 46 mil Euros malt factory in Buzau, its third unit in Romania, Ziarul Financiar published March 23.

The factory will start production in autumn 2008, Constantin Boscodeala, Buzau’s mayor, said in a statement. “The investment is 46 mil Euros, which makes it one of the biggest investment in our city”, he also said. Soufflet Romania announced the investment in mid 2006, when it had been estimated at 25 mil Euros. It also said that Buzau factory would produce malt for Ursus Breweries.

Soufflet is the owner of malt factories in Pitesti, Buzau and raw materials warehouses in Timisoara. The Soufflet Group is the European biggest malt producer.

ABARE corrected its Australian barley crop figure upwards from 3.673 to 3.722 million tonnes, the correction coming from a better estimate for South Australia.

The S/D balance, which does not show carry-over figures, gives a domestic demand of 3,160 Mill. tons and exports of 2.665 million tonnes incl. 1.240 million tonnes of malting barley and 627,000 tonnes of malt in grain equivalent. Obviously the trade does not agree at all with these figures, but claims that any export surplus is much smaller, especially that of malting barley.

China imported 137,000 tonnes of barley in January of this year. Purchases of old and new crop French 6rw Esterel barley are estimated at 40 – 60,000 tonnes.

China's malting barley imports in January-September were 1.777 million t, of which almost 1.4 million t from Australia, the balance from Canada. The annual demand of malting barley is 4 million t.

A total of 4,442 tonnes of Czech hops were exported to 44 countries last year, a fall of 15.4 percent from 5,249 tonnes in 2005, secretary of the Czech Hop Growers' Association Zdenek Rosa told Czech News Agency, March 15.

He said a record crop in 2005 and lower harvest in 2006 are to blame for the fall in exports. Japan is the biggest buyer accounting for more than 44 percent of exports last year, Rosa said. Hops are supplied to Germany and Britain. Exports rose to China, Russia, Belgium and Slovakia last year. Breweries in Romania, Belarus, India, the USA, Ukraine, Cuba and Vietnam are also major customers.

Hops exports amounted to Kc812m and imports stood at Kc116.4m, said Rosa. Hop growers harvested 5,453 tonnes of the crop last year, down 30.4 percent year-on-year. A per hectare yield of 1.01 tonne was 0.37 tonne lower than in 2005. The harvest had been affected by the spring floods, long winter, cold late May and early June, and tropical heat in July.

By area of hop fields, the Czech Republic ranks third in the world after Germany and the USA.