South China Customs Reports Sharp Growth of Tobacco Imports

Source from:  Chinese Ministry of Commerce 05/11/2006

The Customs of Shenzhen City in south China's Guangdong Province reported that tobacco imports that entered China through it in the first quarter of 2006 reached 43.39 million U.S. dollars, a sharp increase of 87.5 percent over the same period of 2005, all in the form of general trade for domestic sales. In particular, high-quality leaf tobacco from Brazil imported through the Customs of Shenzhen in the three-month period reached 39.47 million U.S. dollars, a soar of 1.5 times year-on-year, accounting for 91 percent of the total tobacco imports through the Customs of Shenzhen in the first quarter, from the previous level of 67 percent. In 2005, the Customs of Shenzhen already registered a growth of 15.2 percent in tobacco imports over 2004. Also in the first quarter of 2006, the imports of cigarettes made from tobacco that entered China through the Customs of Shenzhen amounted to only 2.947 million U.S. dollars, down 51.9 percent from the same period of 2005, with its proportion in the total tobacco imports through it in the three-month period declining to 6.8 percent from the level of 24.5 percent a year ago. Enditem