Key Tobacco Manufacturer Strives to Develop High-Grade Cigarette Products

Honghe General Cigarette Factory in southwest China's tobacco-producing Yunnan Province - a key Chinese tobacco manufacturer - will strive to develop high-grade cigarette products in 2007, in accordance with a business development requirement of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) - the regulator of China's tobacco industry. In conducting an inspection of the tobacco industry in Yunnan in 2006, STMA Director-General Jiang Chengkang required Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation - the operator of the manufacturing sector of the provincial tobacco industry - to give priority to the development of high-grade cigarette products. In efforts to meet this requirement, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation recently sent a high-level delegation led by its Deputy General Manager Yao Qingyan to Honghe General Cigarette Factory to conduct feasibility studies for strengthening the production of high-grade cigarette products. Upon its arrival, the delegation held talks with the leadership of Honghe General Cigarette Factory on the production of high-grade cigarettes. Speaking at the talks, Director Qiu Jiankang of Honghe General Cigarette Factory briefed the delegation on existing production of high-grade cigarette products and analyzed both the advantages and disadvantages faced by the cigarette factory in developing the production of high-grade cigarettes in future. Qiu said that besides restriction by the many existing external factors, Honghe General Cigarette Factory has many weak points in production and operation in many respects, including the research and development of new products and market development. In particular, Honghe General Cigarette Factory is yet to form a comparative advantage in significantly improving the quality of its products, and has to overcome a relatively big quantity of disadvantages in market development as well as accuracy and efficiency on the part of its market development personnel, he noted. Therefore, in 2007, Honghe General Cigarette Factory will focus its energy on exploring ways of significantly improving the quality of its cigarette products closely in accordance with the results of experiments, and strengthening market development by conducting on-site market surveys and analysis of marketing and by practically increasing market shares. Also speaking at the talks, Deputy General Manager Feng Bin of the Commerce Center of Honghe General Cigarette Factory briefed the delegation on the placement of orders for high-grade products of Honghe General Cigarette Factory and part of the plan of the cigarette factory for market development in the near future. In an address to the talks, Yao analyzed the general trend of high-grade cigarette production in Yunnan and the rest of China. He affirmed the basis and necessary conditions of Honghe General Cigarette Factory for strengthening the development of high-grade cigarette products in terms of brands, quality, marketing, etc, and offered a wide range of opinions and instructions on how to strengthen the development of high-grade cigarette products by Honghe General Cigarette Factory. In light of the spirit of the talks, the Commerce Center of Honghe General Cigarette Factory will organize staff members of the relevant departments of the cigarette factory to discuss specific ways of strengthening the development of high-grade cigarette products in 2007. Enditem