Construction of China's Largest Tobacco Distribution Center Started

Source from:  Chengdu Daily newspaper 10/13/2008

A high-profile ceremony was held at the Longtan Industrial Park in Chengde City of southwest China's Sichuan Province on October 6 for laying the cornerstone to start the construction of Chengdu Tobacco Distribution Center, which will be the largest of its kind in China. With a total investment of 260 million yuan (37 million U.S. dollars), the future Chengdu Tobacco Distribution Center will cover a 40,000-square-meter area. The construction of this tobacco distribution center is a priority project in the post-earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction of the region, with the approval of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and Sichuan Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration. When its construction is completed, the tobacco distribution center will have an annual cigarette allocation and distribution capacity of 550,000 cases (27.5 billion cigarettes). It will become the largest and first-rate tobacco distribution center in China, which will be the most information-based and the most automatic domestically, and which will also be a landmark logistics enterprise of China's tobacco industry meeting the advanced world level. According to the conceptual designing diagram of the project, the distribution center will consist of joint cigarette workshop buildings, business office buildings and other auxiliary buildings. With a construction area of 18,660 square meters, the joint cigarette workshop buildings will comprise 5,872 square meters of cigarette storehouses, more than 8,000 square meters of selecting workshops and 4,283 square meters of auxiliary workshops. The storehouses will have elevated platforms, with a designed storing capacity of 55,000 cases (2.75 billion cigarettes). The selecting workshops will have equipment of electronic labeling to support artificial assortment and selection, with spaces reserved for realizing fully automatic selection in future. With a construction area of 4,075 square meters, the business office buildings will comprise an allocation and distribution center, a marketing center, a telephone calls processing center and an information center. With a construction area of 5,821 square meters, the other auxiliary buildings will consist of dining halls for workers, basement parking lots, motor vehicle repair facilities, bicycle parking spaces and other support facilities. "The construction of these facilities is only a preliminary plan. The project will be further improved and changed in accordance with opinions of the panel of experts," said sources with the tobacco monopoly administrative authorities of Chengdu City. According to them, the tobacco distribution center will realize digitalized management, rationalization of cigarette storage, electronic assortment of cigarette supplies, optimization of routes of allocation and distribution and economical dispatch of means of transportation, which will provide a powerful support for development of the local tobacco industry. It was reported that over recent years, the tobacco industry of Chengdu City annually earns 9 billion yuan (1.28 billion U.S. dollars) in tobacco sales, and sells 24 billion cigarettes (480,000 cases), with annual profits and taxes reaching 2 billion yuan (286 million U.S. dollars). Therefore, Chengdu has become the largest cigarette sales center in China expect the four provincial-level municipalities – Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing. "The construction of the tobacco distribution center will be playing a powerful role in promoting the process of turning the tobacco industry of Chengdu into a modern tobacco marketing sector capable of generating up to 10 billion yuan (1.43 billion U.S. dollars) in annual sales," said sources with the tobacco industry of Chengdu. Enditem