Carlsberg to shut Baltika breweries: Denmark’s brewing giant Carlsberg is to close its Baltika breweries in Chelyabinsk and Krasnoyarsk at the end of April, it announced today (January 29th), blaming difficult macroeconomic and regulatory conditions. Operations had already been suspended at the two sites last year as Carlsberg responded to a 24% drop in Russia’s beer market between 2008 and 2013, a trend which accelerated sharply in the first half of 2014, when sales fell by a further 7%.The Baltika brand is sold across the former Soviet Union and one third of Carlsberg’s operating profits historically come from Russia. The company said that the closures would reduce its Russian capacity by about 15% and would lead to 500-600 job losses. Reuters, The Moscow Times