Tsingtao Brewery Co., the Chinese beer company partly owned by Anheuser-Busch Cos., fell the most in a month in Hong Kong trading after saying 2007 profit will be reduced by a higher tax rate to be applied to its earnings, according to Bloomberg, April 16.

Tsingtao Brewery fell 8.4 percent to HK$18.92 in Hong Kong, the biggest decline since March 17. Its Shanghai- listed shares fell 1 percent to 23.87 yuan.

The company will pay income taxes at a 33 percent rate for 2007, it said in a statement to Shanghai's stock exchange today. Tsingtao Brewery, based in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, said in August its first-half income tax rate was 15 percent.

Profit for the first nine months of 2007 was 560 million yuan ($80 million) with the new tax rate and 695 million yuan without, Tsingtao Brewery said. The company will report full- year earnings on April 22.

Tsingtao Brewery will pay income taxes at a 25 percent rate in 2008, it said.

Barley growers across South Australia and Victoria will share in first distribution payments from ABB Grain’s 2007/2008 select pools, according to ABB’s press release, April 16.

Growers who delivered malting barley into ABB's 2007/2008 No.1 pools will receive $390/tonne for malting 1 barley and $380/tonne for feed 1 barley – both amounts representing 89% of the current estimated grower return (EGR).

Growers who delivered into ABB's No.2 select pools will receive $345/t for malting 1 barley and $320/t for feed 1; growers who put barley into the No.3 select pool will receive $340/t for malting 1 and $290/t for feed 1.

The following charges will be factored into the above distributions: research levies and VFF levies (where applicable), 100% anticipated bulk handling and 100% of anticipated freight.

ABB Grain's general manager marketing, Peter Jones, said that the pools were still a valuable option for growers in a deregulated barley market as they were able to take advantage of both export and domestic demand.

He said the high percentages of the EGR for the first distributions reflected another below-average crop in South Australia in the 2007 but also the very high prices that barley was attracting and has continued to attract.

"Also, because of the smaller crop, ...More Info

M. Trnka1, P. Hlavinka1, D. Semerádová1, M. Dubrovský2, Z. Žalud1, M. Možný3

1Institute of Agrosystems and Bioclimatology, Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno, Czech Republic; 2Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic; 3Agrometeorological Observatory in Doksany, Czech Hydrometeorological Institute, Prague, Czech Republic

ABSTRACT
The relationship between detrended district yields of spring barley (1961–2000) and meteorological drought was assessed by Palmer Z-index. We found that the seasonal water balance (April–June) significantly (P = 0.05) influences the spring barley production in 51 out of 62 evaluated districts. Coefficients of correlation varied in individual districts from 0.19 to 0.70, with the highest values being found in southern Moravia. Data analysis revealed the presence of six distinct groups of districts with a specific drought-yield relationship. The most drought-sensitive cluster included five districts in the South East of the country. On the other hand, the districts in Northern Moravia and Silesia belong among the least sensitive to agricultural drought. The study also defined threshold values of seasonal drought (sums of relative Palmer Z-index lower than –8 and –10, respectively), below which medium to severe spring barley yield reductions are very likely, regardless of the district of occurrence.
... Load full article, 6 pages, 2.224 Kb, PDF file