Altria Group, which owns 78% of Philip Morris CR (PMCR) reported its 2Q2005 results yesterday. Altria provided little information regarding its Czech operations, but nevertheless said that CEE volumes declined by 3.4% in 2Q05 due to weakness in Romania and Poland, offset by gains in Greece and the Czech and Slovak Republics. Slovak Republic shipments were up 17.3%, driven by the strong performances of L&M and Red & White brands. We expect these factors to positively impact PMCR’s first-half sales. PMCR is expected to report its 1H05 figures towards the end of August.