Equipment

Krones is "a good deal closer" to its targets for the financial year, after recording a 25.7% increase in pre-tax profits in the first half of 2007.

The beverage filling and packaging technology manufacturer's sales were up 14.5% on the same period last year, to £716m (€1.053m), and it is now on course to "significantly exceed" annual sales of €2bn for the first time.

Its order bookings also rose, by 17.8%, and orders at hand on 30 June were 12.7% higher than at the same time last year.

The German company said there was still scope for expansion in established markets as well as in up-and-coming regions, such as Russia, Latin America and China, where increased demand meant breweries and bottling plants were likely to invest "above-average sums" in their production lines.

Krones also said the trend for beverages to be bottled increasingly in PET containers "continued unbroken" in the first half of 2007.