Regional Corporation Invests Heavily in Rebuilding Cigar Production Base in Quake Stricken area

Source from:  West China Metropolitan News newspaper 06/23/2008

Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation -- the operator of the tobacco industries in southwest China's Sichuan Province and its neighboring Chongqing City - will invest 800 million yuan (114 million U.S. dollars) in the technical transformation and relocation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory in Shifang City of Sichuan Province that was hard hit by a devastating earthquake on May 12. On June 15, Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation signed an agreement on the heavy investment in the project of technical transformation and relocation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory in Shifang City, which is yet another big project to be established in Shifang following the signing of an agreement on the establishment of the Phase-Two and Phase-Three projects of a cement plant in the city in the wake of the May 12 earthquake. The magnitute-8 earthquake has caused serious damage to buildings, bridges and other public facilities in an area of more than 100,000 square kilometers both in Sichuan and its neighboring regions. Quake-related losses to companies totaled 67 billion yuan (9.5 billion U.S. dollars), Deputy Industry Minister Xi Guohua said recently. On June 11, Director-General Jiang Chengkang of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) led a delegation to inspect the work of disaster relief and reconstruction on the part of the local tobacco industry in Shifang. During the inspection, Jiang said that the project of technical transformation and relocation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory will be a priority project of the STMA in supporting the reconstruction work in Shifang City. In a recent interview with the West China Metropolitan News newspaper, Deputy General Manager Wu Xian of Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation said that the project of technical transformation and relocation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory is intended to build it into the largest cigar production base in China and the largest cigar making enterprise in Asia with an annual output of 2 billion cigars, and to turn the Great Wall Cigars into the No. 1 cigar brand in China, and to enable it to go on international markets swiftly. Enditem