The European Drinks food group will invest up to 100 million euros over the next two years to boost the production capacity of their brewery in Draganesti, Bihor County.

The company announced it has doubled the production capacity to 2 million hectolitres a year, with the factory''s capacity set to reach 3.5 million hectolitres by the end of 2006.

"Our investments on the beer segment will reach 150 million euros in the next few years," stated Ioan Micula, the chairman of European Drinks.

The company initially built a brewery with an annual capacity of one million hectolitres, in a greenfield investment.

Micula said the decision to boost production capacity is due to very high demand and tapping into foreign markets. "Budapest is closer to us than Bucharest. About 100 million people live within a 1,000 km radius of us and it is as profitable as it gets to distribute on foreign markets," the European Drinks chairman specified. He added exports went up 100% this year from 2004. Sales of beer on the foreign markets do not account for much in terms of the company''s turnover, but the situation will change after 2007, says Ioan Micula. "We could not export if we did not have the capacity. We got a very good order from Germany last year that we could not fill because of the lack of capacity," Micula explained.

According to the chairman of the group, this year''s beer sales for European Drinks went up by 20% in volume compared with 2004. "Things are even better in terms of value," Micula added.

European Drinks produces PET bottled Burger, Meister and Dracula.Along with the expansion of the production capacity, the company is also investing in the expansion of its keg-bottling line, an investment that will be completed at the beginning of next year. The European Drinks food group will invest up to 100 mil