E-Malt.com News article: Kazakhstan: Crown to build a new production plant in Kazakhstan

Within the strategy to follow the growth of the beverage market eastwards, Crown will build a new can production plant in Kazakhstan. "Crown Bevcan continues to expand its presence in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia to align with customer investments and market growth opportunities," stated John Clinton, Crown's senior vice president of the unit to the Food&Production Daily of November 28.

"Several leading soft drink and beer companies have recently increased capacity in the region and the new facility in Almaty will allow us to support the growth of their brands on both a local and global level."

The plant is being built so a second production line can be installed, allowing Crown to increase capacity as market demand grows. The plant will be located in the Burundai suburb of Almaty and adjacent to local customer filling plants. The plant will also serve neighboring markets.

Crown Bevcan, a unit of the company, plans to begin commercial production of 33cl and 50cl cans in the first quarter of 2007. It will be capable of producing 750 million aluminum beverage cans a year.

Baltic Beverages Holding owned jointly by Carlsberg of Denmark and Hartwall of Finland, is to further extend its presence in eastern Europe with the acquisition of a 76 per cent stake in the Kazakhstan brewery, Irbis. Earlier this month Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH), the brewing group owned jointly by Carlsberg of Denmark and Hartwall of Finland, said it would further extend its presence in Eastern Europe with the acquisition of a 76 per cent stake in the Kazakhstan brewery, Irbis.

The deal was carried out by BBH's Russian brewery Baltika, and will see the company enter the Kazakhstan market for the first time. Although Irbis is already well established there, BBH said there is still room for improvement, and will begin construction of a new brewery as soon as it can obtain the necessary approval.The €45 million brewery will have an initial capacity of 75 million litres, and should begin production by the summer of 2004. In the meantime, BBH said it would invest in strengthening Irbis' brand portfolio and in introducing a number of new brands produced at its other breweries in Russia.

Earlier in the month Crown completed the sale of its global plastic closures business to PAI Partners, a private equity firm. Crown's international plastic closures business is mostly based in Europe.



30 November, 2005