Kingdom of Tobacco Reports Increase in Profits, Taxes

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 08/23/2010

The tobacco industry of southwest China's tobacco-producing Yunnan Province - known as the kingdom of tobacco in China - generated 37.1 billion yuan (5.46 billion U.S. dollars) in taxes and profits in the first half of 2010, an increase of 3.7 billion yuan (545 million U.S. dollars), or 11 percent, over the same period of 2009, according to a statement released by the provincial tobacco industry. A tobacco work conference held in the first half of the year set the annual cigarette output of Yunnan Province at 6.9 million cases (345 billion cigarettes), and the anticipated increment of profits and taxes at 3 billion yuan (440million U.S. dollars) to 3.5 billion yuan (520 million U.S. dollars). However, an extraordinarily severe drought that was the most serious over the past century caused grave damage to the economic development in Yunnan Province. To give full play to the role as a backbone of the provincial tobacco industry, the Communist Party Yunnan Provincial Committee, the Yunnan Provincial Government and the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) all gave instructions requiring the tobacco industry of Yunnan to make greater contribution to the fight against the severe drought and to the economic development under the current harsh situation across the province. In response, the Communist Party group at Yunnan Provincial China Tobacco Industry Corporation, in accordance with the instructions of the provincial government and the STMA, actively readjusted the working guideline and working targets and tasks, and put greater pressure on itself by resetting the target of anticipated increment of profits and taxes to 5 billion yuan (730 million U.S. dollars) from the level of 3.5 billion yuan (520 million U.S. dollars), and strove for its realization. In the first half of 2010, the commercial sector of the tobacco industry of Yunnan sold 256 billion cigarettes (5.12 million cases) of brands owned by Yunnan, up 4.7 percent year-on-year, accounting for 20.6 percent of the total cigarette market shares in China, up 0.12 percent year-on-year. In particular, it sold 18 billion (360,000 cases) Yuxi brand cigarettes, up 34 percent year-on-year; 44 billion (880,000 cases) Yunyan brand cigarettes), up 21 percent year-on-year; 70 billion (1.4 million cases) Mount Hongtashan brand cigarettes, up 29 percent year-on-year; and 60 billion (1.2 million cases) Honghe brand cigarettes, up 19 percent year-on-year. The sales volume of the four leading competitive cigarette brands of the tobacco industry of Yunnan reached a high of 192.5 billion cigarettes (3.85 million cases) in the first six months of 2010, up 24.7 percent year-on-year, accounting for 75 percent of the total cigarette sales volume of the provincial tobacco industry in the six-month period, up 12 percent year-on-year. Enditem