China: STMA holds national conference on cigarette sales

12/10/2008

The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) held a national conference on coordination between the manufacturing and commercial sectors of the tobacco industry in cigarette sales in Beijing on December 1-3, summing up the work of cigarette sales in 2008 and unveiling tasks for economic operation in 2009. Attending the meeting were STMA Director-General Jiang Chengkang and Deputy Director-Generals He Zehua and Li Keming as well as other dignitaries. In an address to the meeting, Jiang Chengkang pointed out that since the beginning of 2008, the tobacco industry of China has maintained a favorable trend of development of leaf tobacco production, and also a trend of coordinated growth in both cigarette production and sales, with the structure of cigarette products improved on a continued basis, with the cost of production further declining, with greater achievements made in energy conservation and emission reduction, with economic efficiency continuing to go up, and with the quality of economic operation further improving, relatively well realizing sound and rapid development. As changes in the international and domestic economic environment have begun to cast obvious impacts on the tobacco industry, major targets for the work of economic operation of the tobacco industry in 2009 will be to prevent possible overheating in leaf tobacco production, maintain the trend of growth in cigarette production and stabilize prices of cigarette products, Jiang said. To realize these targets, the tobacco industry of China needs to well handle the following key aspects of work presently: Firstly, it needs to strictly control the total cigarette supply and maintain stability of cigarette prices. Secondly, it needs to keep improving the structure of cigarette products and continue promoting it to a higher level. Thirdly, it needs to strengthen management on a full scale and continue lowering the cost of production. And fourthly, it needs to keep promoting systemic reform in an in-depth way and promote rational flow of essential factors of production. In a separate address to the meeting, He Zehua said that coordination between the manufacturing and commercial sectors in cigarette sales is a fundamental requirement for improving the marketing system of the tobacco industry and forming the systemic advantages of the tobacco industry; is an indispensable approach for reforming the marketing system by organizing supply in accordance with the placement of orders by customers and improving the cigarette supply chain; and is an effective means for the tobacco industry to optimize its structure of resources and raise its efficiency, which will be of strategic importance to the development of the tobacco industry. Since the beginning of 2008, the tobacco industry has achieved remarkable success in the operation of pilot projects to realize coordination between the manufacturing and commercial sectors in cigarette sales, with cigarette sales in steady growth, with the development of competitive cigarette brands in a favorable trend, with the efficiency of marketing obviously going up, and with cigarette marketing promoted to a higher level on a full scale. Enditem