Archive

Keith Nuthall
THE FIRST privatisation of a brewery in Soviet-era relic Belarus has attracted investment from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). It is sinking US$3 million in equity funding into countries the Detroit Belarus Brewing Company and lending US$7 million to the CJSC Belarus Brewing Company; both companies are participating in the privatisation of OJSC Dednovo Brewery, in Belarus’ Mohilev region.…

Keith Nuthall
THE UNITED States has formally requested that a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel censure a 20 per cent tax imposed by Mexico on beverages and syrups that use sweeteners other than cane sugar, (and associated bookkeeping and reporting restrictions).…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced that it is granting Portugal’s Comissão de Viticultura da Região dos Vinhos Verdes (CVRVV) Euro 882,320 over three years to help promote its products within the European Union (EU). Matching funding will come from the Portuguese government and the Comissão itself, taking the programme’s total budget to Euro 1.76 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BULGARIA has won protection within the European Union (EU) for names of 13 traditionally made spirits drinks, mostly types of fruit spirits called rakiya, once it joins the European Union (EU) probably in January 2007. In a membership deal, Bulgaria will be allowed to increase land under viticulture by 1.5 per cent from the current 156,000 hectares, a right available to other EU wine producing states.…

BY MARK ROWE
ALCOHOL products are one of the major strengths that the new members of the recently enlarged European Union (EU) bring to its economic table. Of the 10 newcomers, six are wine-producing countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.…

BY MARK ROWE
GIVEN the level of public concern over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in what we drink and eat, most companies have chosen to tread warily around the issue and sought not to draw attention to it. In the Swedish town of Ystad, however, a small family brewery has adopted the opposite approach.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has brushed aside a demand by Italy to be allowed to continue marketing Tocai Friulano wine after 2007 when an agreement permitting its use of the name expires. The European Union (EU) agreed in 1993 that the name Tokai should be reserved for Hungary after 2007 but Italy claims that the entry of that country into the EU in May this year changes the rules and it is seeking a legal interpretation to this effect from the European Court of Justice (ECJ).…

Keith Nuthall
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, has lent US$35 million loan to OJSC Experimental-Cannery Lebedyansky, a key branded packed juices and juice drinks producer in Russia. The loan will support expansion and modernisation plans, boosting production efficiency and capacity, expanding the company’s product range, and strengthening distribution.…

Keith Nuthall
ROMANIA’S drinks industry will be allowed to protect within the EU traditional names of certain wine and spirit products under an agreement with the European Commission helping the country to join the EU by the end of 2006. The deal on agricultural matters will prevent non-Romanian producers from selling wines called Vinars Târnave, Vinars Murfatlar and Vinars Vrancea, as well as spirits named Palinca and Tuica Ardeleneasca de Bistrita (SPELLINGS CORRECT).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SWITZERLAND has released a paper outlining where the world’s drinks producing countries agree over the long-running debate World Trade Organisation debate on creating an international register of protected terms for wines and spirits. It includes an acceptance that terms that have become generic should be unprotected, that member countries can decide how geographical indications should be protected within their own systems and that a register should “facilitate” protection.…