Chinese Manufacturer Strives to Develop High-Standard Tobacco Machinery

Source from:  Xuchang City 05/18/2004

Xuchang Tobacco Machinery Company in central China’s Henan Province is striving to develop high-standard tobacco machinery capable of producing cigarettes with a lower content of tar and other harmful substances. Since the beginning of 2004, technicians with the research institute of Xuchang Tobacco Machinery Company have been busy analyzing the functions of high-performance tobacco machinery manufactured in China. On the basis of market surveys and technical proof, they have proposed the development of two new types of high-standard cigarette-making machines for producing low-tar level cigarettes in keeping with a cigarette tar-level reducing timetable set by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA). On January 9, 2004, the STMA issued a notice to all the tobacco manufacturers in China containing a timetable for reducing the content of tar in cigarettes. According to the timetable, cigarette products with a tar level of 15mg/per cigarette to be produced after July 1, 2004 will be determined as sub-standard products and will no longer be marketable in China. Since the STMA set a package of targets for lowering the content of tar and other harmful substances in cigarette products in 2000, the content of tar in Chinese-manufactured cigarettes has declined by an annual average of 0.5 mg/per cigarette over the past three years, the notice says. In 2003, the weighted average of tar content in Chinese-manufactured cigarettes declined to a low of 14.3mg/per cigarette, it says. Earlier this year, a new leadership of the research institute of Xuchang Tobacco Machinery Company was formed. Since taking office, the new leadership has vowed to lead the research institute to accelerate the development of new tobacco machinery capable of producing cigarettes that will meet the new technical standard set by the STMA. According to the new leadership, the research institute has realized that whoever succeeds in developing highly automatic, highly operational and well functioning new tobacco machinery capable of producing low-tar level cigarettes will be able to win a potential big market. Enditem