Hungary round-up
Bábolna business, Kaiser Food upgrading its processing operations
and Hungarian wine producers looking towards a vintage year.
Kaiser Food upgrades
Hungarian meat processor Kaiser Food says it has finished an HUF 1 billion (€4 million) upgrade for its processing plant in Abda together with its salami production facility in Mosonmagyaróvár.
The company said that it had received a subsidy of HUF 263 million from the EU's Sapard funding programme, which in turn has helped the company to comply with EU regulations for safety and quality.
Although the modernization programmed is impact production during the first half of this year, the company is expecting that it will be able to boost its revenues by an estimated HUF 80 million for the complete financial year 2004, compared to last year's HUF 4.4 billion turnover.
Bábolna to close
Hungarian state-owned agro-food concern Bábolna is to close down from today owing to continued losses sustained in the course of the last few years.
The group's debts have now been transferred into a subordinated loan which amounts to HUF 30 billion and will be payable to its creditors.
The company's non-profitable operations will be wound up, while its profitable operations were regrouped under the newly founded Bábolna Elemiszer-ipari company that is to be privatized in the near future.
Bábolna's two profitable poultry processing facilities in Békéscsaba and Kecskemét are also in the process of being sold to private investors.
Hungary expects better grape harvest
The National Council of Wine Producing Villages says it is expecting a better grape harvest compared to last year, according to a report from New World Publishing.
The council's general secretary said that approximately 400 million litres of wine was likely to be produced in Hungary from this year's grape harvest, which owing to excellent conditions seems to be of a good quality and copious.
Traditionally wine production in Hungary has swung between 375 million and 500 million litres, but inclement conditions have led to disappointing crops in the last couple of years.
In recent years the Hungarian government has implemented production quotas for Hungarian wine producers, aimed at reducing the amount of low quality wines and upping quality.
