Management Report - Nordzucker AG
Management Report - Nordzucker AG
Management Report - Nordzucker AG
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
<strong>Management</strong> <strong>Report</strong><br />
Outlook<br />
34<br />
Our chief objective for the year<br />
2004/2005 will be the consolidation<br />
of our operations as well as the<br />
strategic orientation of the company<br />
with the aim of consolidating our core<br />
activities in the long run. With the accession<br />
of ten new member states to the<br />
European Union on 1 May 2004, and the<br />
gradual coming into force of the EU<br />
sugar market regulations in these countries,<br />
it will be essential for us to proceed<br />
with the integration of our commitments<br />
in Poland, Slovakia and Hungary into<br />
the <strong>Nordzucker</strong> <strong>AG</strong> organisation. To be<br />
able to maintain the earning capacity of<br />
the company, we aim at a long-term and<br />
organic growth. We see growth potential<br />
for our core activities in the sugar sector,<br />
but also for a market- and customeroriented<br />
expansion of our competence<br />
in sweetening products. Starch saccharification<br />
products and Tagatose are first<br />
steps in this direction.<br />
EU Beet Cultivation and Sugar<br />
Production Must Remain Profitable<br />
Much of our attention is being directed<br />
at developments in the agricultural<br />
reforms that are at the present up for<br />
discussion. In addition to the agreed<br />
opening for imports from the least developed<br />
countries (LDC) and the WTO<br />
negotiations which are still pending, other<br />
uncertainties surround the legal action<br />
brought by Brazil, Thailand and Australia<br />
against certain sugar exports of the<br />
European Union (WTO panel). The<br />
European sugar industry together with<br />
politicians from all member states are<br />
called on to arrive at appropriate and<br />
reasonable solutions. Our joint efforts<br />
have to be directed at maintaining the<br />
profitability of beet cultivation and sugar<br />
production in the EU. While the EU<br />
Commission favoured price reductions<br />
and tariff protection in the beginning,<br />
there is now a tendency to prefer quotas<br />
for all involved. The first tentative decisions<br />
are expected for early 2005.<br />
Restructuring Programme in East<br />
Europe Due to be Finalised<br />
In March 2004 we decided to discontinue<br />
beet processing in the sugar factory<br />
Hatvan in Hungary. After the closure<br />
of the Trnava plant in Slovakia after the<br />
2004 campaign, our eight <strong>Nordzucker</strong><br />
factories in Germany, two sugar factories<br />
each in Poland and Hungary, as well as<br />
one factory in Slovakia provide a sound<br />
basis for competing for markets and customers<br />
in the expanded European Union.<br />
Much of the future developments will<br />
depend on the revised contents of the<br />
EU sugar market regulations.<br />
Changed Beet Flows 2004<br />
The closure of the Schleswig factory will<br />
reduce the overall processing capacity of<br />
<strong>Nordzucker</strong> <strong>AG</strong> to some 90,000 (97,000)<br />
metric tons of beets per day of the campaign.<br />
As with previous plant closures,<br />
this reduction will also affect the catchment<br />
area for the remaining factories.<br />
For this reason alone we expect the 2004