Chinese Cigar Maker Completes Relocation, Technological Transformation

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 05/03/2011

The Great Wall Cigar Factory of Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation in southwest China - the maker of the famous Great Wall brand cigars - has recently completed a two-year process of relocation and technological transformation intended to significantly strengthen its annual production capacity, upgrade its production technology and sharpen its competitive edge.

On April 27, 2011, a grand ceremony was held in Shifang City of Sichuan Province - home to the Great Wall Cigar Factory - to mark the completion of the project of relocation and technological transformation that started in the wake of a devastating earthquake hitting southwest China on May 12, 2008, and to inaugurate the relocated Great Wall Cigar Factory. Jointly starting and attending the inaugural ceremony were Director-General Jiang Chengkang, Deputy Director-General He Zehua and Chief Accountant and Financial Affairs and Auditing Department Chief Zhang Yuxia of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), Sichuan Provincial Communist Party Committee Deputy Secretary Li Chongxi, Deputy Governor Li Chengyun of Sichuan Province and other dignitaries. Besides, Li Xiangzhi, secretary of the Communist Party Committee of Deyang City in Sichuan Province, and Wu Yinglu, the Communist Party group secretary and general manager of Sichuan-Chongqing Regional China Tobacco Industry Corporation, respectively delivered speeches at the inaugural ceremony. The project of relocation and technological transformation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory was the first comprehensive project of relocation and technological transformation of a cigar manufacturing enterprise approved by the STMA in China. Besides, it was defined by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as a priority post-earthquake reconstruction project. Started in 2008, the project of relocation and technological transformation of the Great Wall Cigar Factory has a total investment of 1.2 billion yuan (185 million U.S. dollars). The new site of the Great Wall Cigar Factory covers a total area of 455 mu (30.3 hectares). With completion of the project of relocation and technological transformation, the new the Great Wall Cigar Factory now has an annual production capacity of 5 billion cigars or more, including 11.3 million high-end cigars. By the end of the 2011-2015 five-year period, the Great Wall Cigar Factory will have been capable of generating 1.5 billion yuan (230 million U.S. dollars) in annual sales income, including 800 million yuan (123 million U.S. dollars) in annual taxes and profits. By then, the new the Great Wall Cigar Factory will have become the largest cigar manufacturing base in China and even in the whole of Asia. In efforts to upgrade its cigar-making capacity and meet the increasing demand for cigar products at the marketplace, the Great Wall Cigar Factory, in the process of executing the project of relocation and technological transformation, newly built a cigar leaf making line, a cigar leaf cutting line and a stem cutting line. Meanwhile, it managed to import from the Netherlands and other countries large quantities of advanced equipment for rolling and wrapping up cigars, which has reached advanced world levels. Since the start of the project of relocation and technological transformation, the Great Wall Cigar Factory has firmly kept in mind its missions, has repaid society for patronage, has striven to forge ahead, has meticulously done all work in line with the general requirement of the policy of the scientific reconstruction, execution of the project of relocation and technological transformation in a well regulated way, and striving to be "advanced, first-rate and exemplary", and has gone all out to assume the quality of the work of executing the project of relocation and technological transformation. In particular, it has done a good job of post-earthquake reconstruction with merely more than 300 days of work from the start of the project to the trial operation of the relocated cigar factory. Enditem