The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) - the regulator of China's tobacco industry - has recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Further Strengthening the Development of Cigarette Brands, providing for efforts to optimize the distribution of resources, promote technological progress, strengthen the maintenance of cigarette brands, and increase the value of cigarette brands.
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The opinions points out that after entry into a new development stage, and in face of the new situation and new requirements, the development of cigarette brands by the tobacco industry of China is still a distance away from meeting its working requirement for promoting the development of cigarette brands to higher levels. Therefore, steps shall be taken to further optimize the distribution of resources, increase the value of cigarette brands on a continued basis, further strengthen technological innovation supporting the development of brands, enhance the core competitiveness of brands that has not been powerful enough, further strengthen the maintenance of brands, and further improve the product quality control system that has not been desirable enough.
To strengthen the development of cigarette brands will not only be an effective approach for solving such problems, but will also be an inevitable crucial step to promote the development of cigarette brands to higher levels, enhance the core competitiveness of brands, and realize sound and rapid development of key cigarette brands, according to the opinions.
The opinions emphasized that the guidelines on strengthening the development of cigarette brands are to adhere to the direction of developing Chinese-style cigarettes; to strive to promote organic unity between the three major brands development strategies of promoting the development of big markets, big brands and big enterprises, reducing the content of tar and other harmful substances, and improving quality and increasing efficiency; to strive to promote organic unity between brands development strategies, brands innovation and brands maintenance; to strive to promote organic unity between brands development, common development and sustainable development; and, closely in accordance with the focus of fostering competitive brands, to clearly define the status of brands, give prominence to styles and characteristics, optimize the distribution of resources, promote technological progress, strengthen the maintenance of brands, increase the value of brands, enhance the core competitiveness of brands on a full scale, and realize sustainable, coordinated and common development of cigarette brands of China’s tobacco industry.
The opinions points out that to strengthen the development of cigarette brands, efforts shall be stepped up in the following respects:
Firstly, brands development planning shall be improved, and the direction of brands development shall be specified.
Secondly, technological innovation shall be strengthened, and the core competitiveness of brands shall be enhanced. With realization of "easiness", "comfortableness" and "satisfactoriness" of cigarette products as a target, cigarette product quality shall be improved through innovation of technologies for blending formulas of raw materials, blending of flavor, cigarette materials, processing engineering, etc, to give prominence to styles and characteristics, and to enlarge the scope of the use of raw materials.
Thirdly, upgrading of cigarette products shall be accelerated, and the value of brands shall be increased.
Fourthly, maintenance of the quality of brands, technologies and markets shall be strengthened, to realize steady development of brands.
Fifthly, development of the culture of brands shall be strengthened, to effectively convey the value of brands.
And sixthly, cigarette product quality control shall be strengthened, to ensure healthy development of brands. In this respect, efforts shall be made to strengthen safety regulation over raw materials, cigarette supplies and equipment, strengthen control and management in the process of cigarette production, promote the development of product safety standards, and establish and improve mechanisms for guaranteeing the safety of product research and development. Enditem
