World malt: The mood of the EU malting industry is not good, market analysts have recently commented. The industry suffers from an overcapacity in the whole of Europe. Its structure of few large corporations, but a large number of medium and small enterprises makes it vulnerable vis-à-vis the powerful international brewing groups. As per Euromalt EU-15 malting capacities have not changed much since 1996, they totalled 7.4 million tonnes in 2003. In 2004/05 expansions in France, Belgium, Holland and Sweden will add 250,000 tonnes, in the U.K. 50,000 tonnes will be shut down. Malt production in the EU-10 newcomers is 1.2 million tonnes. Slovakia will close 2 maltings with a capacity of 25,000 tonnes. A 60,000 tonnes plant was opened in Lithuania. Russian malting industries have grown from 4-500,000 tonnes some years ago to 1 million tonnes now, and it will reach 1.4 or even 1.5 million tonnes by 2006. It will sharply curtail Russian imports. Ukrainian maltings can produce 240,000 tonnes of malt now, two expansions are in the planning. New capacities will come on stream in Montana and Western Australia.

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