Belarus: British American Tobacco Considers Making Filters in Grodno

Source from:  News of Belarus 03/15/2013

The foreign company British American Tobacco Trading Company is considering the possibility of placing the facilities to make additional materials for cigarette production in Grodno. The information was released by Mr Pavel Bocharov, Director of the company, at the press conference held in OAO Grodno Tobacco Factory Neman on 14 March, BelTA has learned.

The Grodno factory is about to finish the joint project involving British American Tobacco Trading Company to install two lines to make and package cigarettes with the total cost of €11 million. Pavel Bocharov said that the project was the continuation of the cooperation the two companies started in 2005. Since then the foreign investor has poured about €14.5 million into the modernization of the Grodno factory.
 
"Successful implementation of another project will allow us to consider attempting to localize the production of filters for our company at the Grodno factory so that we could buy some of the filters here," said the executive. He underlined that the matter is not settled yet, work is in progress. However, successful cooperation with the Grodno factory and the high evaluation of its equipment, quality control allow considering such decisions.
 
The foreign-owned company British American Tobacco Trading Company has been working in Belarus since 1995. The company started contract-based production of cigarettes at the Grodno-based tobacco factory Neman in 2005. Since its arrival the foreign company has invested about €20 million in manufacturing equipment and retail equipment for various partners.
 
In 2012 over 5 billion cigarettes were made for British American Tobacco Trading Company as part of the relevant contract with the Neman factory. Enditem