Kingdom of Tobacco Strives to Develop Support Industries for Tobacco Production

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 06/29/2009

Southwest China's Yunnan Province - the largest tobacco-producing region in China known as the kingdom of tobacco, is striving to promotion the development of support industries for tobacco production in the province while extending operations onto markets in other Chinese regions and non-tobacco markets across China. In a recent interview with local news media, a top leader of the Light Industry Division of Yunnan Provincial Industrial and Information Commission said that according to the Program of Yunnan Province for the Development of Support Industries for Tobacco Production, efforts will be made to enable the support industries for tobacco production in Yunnan to annually generate 13 billion yuan (1.86 billion U.S. dollars) in sales income by 2010, with the annual industrial value added expected to reach 4 billion yuan (571 million U.S. dollars), and with their market shares within the province expected to reach a high of 88 percent eventually. Through steady increase of their market shares in other Chinese regions, the support industries for tobacco production in Yunnan will endeavor to increase their profit making through non-tobacco markets, in order that their reliance on the tobacco industry will decline to 10 percent from a high of 70 percent in 2007, and that the number of their enterprises will decline to some 60 from a high of 110 in 2007, according to the program. The program says that priority will be given to the development of support industries for tobacco production in Yuxi City, Kunming City and Honghe Prefecture, in order to form a conglomerate and several relatively large enterprise groups, and form a modern processing base in support of tobacco production that will be systemically complete, that will be capable of producing a complete range of products, that will be of a first-rte quality, and that will integrate research and development and production into a whole. By 2010, Yunnan will eventually be turned into an auxiliary materials development and processing base for tobacco production and a center for trading raw materials in support of cigarette production that will be the largest in southwest China, and that that will radiate to Southeast Asia. Enditem