PRAGUE, Jan. 9, 2002 (Convertingloop.com) - Czech glass packaging producer Vetropack Moravia Glass, a subsidiary of Swiss giant Vetropack Holding AG, expects to match 2000's overall sales results despite recording a small drop in sales for the first nine months of 2001. Vetropack Moravia Glass spokeswoman Nada Dolejska said that although sales for the first three quarters of 2001 fell by 2.9% year-on-year to CZK 1.34 billion, the company was confident of at least equaling figures for 2000 as a whole, a record year for the company. "We were operating at full capacity during 2000 and sold everything that we produced," she said. "The domestic market was stable and there was also an improved economic situation in our export markets." In 2000, Vetropack Moravia Glass's sales amounted to CZK 1.8 billion. In the first three quarters of 2001, it raised output year-on-year in its domestic market by 6.7 million units to 260 million, while exports fell by 4.1% to 284 million units during the same period. The glassworks, which dominates the Czech market along with Avirunion, produced more than 720 million glass products in 2000 including wine and spirits bottles and containers for the food industry. That compares with 500 million units of glass in 1991, the year that Vetropack Holding entered the company. Over the past decade, Vetropack has invested CZK 2 billion in new machinery and technology. In 2000, an unspecified sum was invested in a modern line for recycling waste glass. Vetropack Moravia Glass expects to invest up to CZK 100 million in 2002 in modernizing production facilities, including control systems for machinery. The company exports roughly half of its output, mainly to Poland, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.