Provincial Tobacco Industry Strives to Develop Landmark Brands of Chinese-Style Cigarettes

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 10/10/2009

The tobacco industry of southwest China's Yunnan Province - the largest tobacco-producing region in China known as the kingdom of tobacco - has been striving to develop landmark brands of Chinese-style cigarettes over recent years by increasing investment and stepping up technological innovation and development to solve hard technical problems in cigarette production. Over the past more than three years, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation - the operator of the provincial tobacco industry - has invested nearly 1.8 billion yuan (257 million U.S. dollars) in solving hard technical problems in tobacco production, including technologies for producing leaf tobacco with unique characteristics and technologies for lowering the content of tar and other harmful substances in cigarettes. By relying on technological innovation, the provincial tobacco industry has been striving to strengthen the core competitiveness of its cigarette products and develop landmark brands of Chinese-style cigarettes. Since 2006, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation has launched 91 projects of technological innovation or development, with a total investment of nearly 1.8 billion yuan (257 million U.S. dollars), focusing its energy on solving hard technical problems in raw materials production, developing technologies with unique characteristics, lowering the content of tar and other harmful substances, developing fragrance and flavor with unique characteristics, etc, which has contributed to promoting the development of brands to a higher level and strengthening the core competitiveness of its products. Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation and Kunming Shipbuilding Equipment Co., Ltd. have cooperated in a project of jointly developing a pilot-scale plant test equipment for vacuum loading systems. So far, the work of installation and readjustment of the equipment has been completed. Besides, the two sides have completed the development of an experimental line for the research and development of leaf tobacco threshing and redrying technologies with unique characteristics, which has entered the stage of trial run and improvement. Also since 2006, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation has launched more than 20 projects of developing technologies for lowering the content of tar and other harmful substances in cigarettes, including the technology for comprehensive reduction of the content of tar and other harmful substances with physical and chemical means in combination. So far, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation has succeeded in developing functional cigarette paper, filter tips with unique characteristics, special tipping paper, plug wrap paper and other relevant functional materials, some of which have been applied in cigarette production. Recently, Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation has also launched eight new projects of research and development of systems for evaluation of the safety of additives to cigarette products and technologies for comprehensive reduction of the content of tar and other harmful substances, including "the establishment of systems for evaluation of the safety of additives to cigarette products", and the "development of composite technologies for selective reduction of the compound of hazard indexes in cigarette products", in further strengthening efforts for research and development of technologies for lowering the content of tar and other harmful substances in cigarettes. Enditem