Beer Production Up 3.6% yoy in January

According to Ukrainian News, beer production surged by 3.6% yoy to 169 mln liters in January 2008. On Friday beer producer association Ukrpyvo said at a press conference that it forecasts 14% yoy growth in beer output in 2008, compared to 18% growth in 2007. Olha Pankiv: The outlook for beer production in 2008 appears better than we previously expected (earlier we projected 6% production growth). We will be upgrading our projections for both traded beer stocks – Sun Interbrew (SUNI: BUY) and Slavutych (SLAV: BUY). We believe the growth in beer production will be driven by domestic demand, which is set to rise on the back of a 13% yoy increase in real disposable income that we expect this year.