China: Guizhou Provincial Tobacco Industry Maps Out Development Plan

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 11/29/2010

The tobacco industry of southwest China's Guizhou Province - the second largest tobacco-producing region in China - has recently mapped out its ambitious development plan in the 2011-2015 five-year period, which foresees great development of leaf tobacco production bases and modernization of leaf tobacco production across the province. At a meeting on leaf tobacco production and infrastructure development for the tobacco industry that ended on November 24, Guizhou Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration unveiled the ambitious development plan to increase the establishment of basic tobacco fields to a total of 8 million mu (533,333 hectares), increase the leaf tobacco production guarantee capacity to 8.5 million dan (425,000 tons) from the current level of 7.02 million dan (351,000 tons), and complete the establishment of over 160 basic units of a modern tobacco agriculture in the province, in basically realizing great development of leaf tobacco production bases, developing unique characteristics of the quality of leaf tobacco products of Guizhou, modernizing the mode of leaf tobacco production, and maintaining the province's status as the second largest tobacco-producing region in China. Over the past few years, Guizhou Province has taken a lead in the development of a modern tobacco agriculture, which has become a model for the development of a modern agriculture in the province. In the 2006-2010 five-year period, the annual leaf tobacco production quotas for Guizhou Province allocated by the State gradually increased from 5.93 million dan (296,500 tons) to 7.0288 million dan (351,440 tons), with the average unit sales price going up from 458 yuan per dan (68 U.S. dollars per 50 kilograms) to 692 yuan per dan (102 U.S. dollars per 50 kilograms). For the past 13 years, the tobacco industry of Guizhou has been in a favorable trend of steady growth, with its annual leaf tobacco output and sales volume accounting some 15 percent of the national total. In an address to the meeting, Director Chen Weidong of Guizhou Provincial Tobacco Monopoly Administration said that in 2010, the average price of State leaf tobacco purchase from Guizhou Province will generally go up by 10 percent while the prices of fertilizer and other material supplies for leaf tobacco production in the province will remain at the same levels as 2010, with price increases to be assumed by the tobacco monopoly administrative authorities. In China, as tobacco is a government monopoly, both the production and marketing of tobacco products are under strict government administration. Enditem