OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2012. Belarus’ privately-owned LLC Tabak-Invest, based in Minsk, increased the output of tobaccos by 8.9% in January-August 2012 to 4.383 billion pieces, an official with Belgospischeprom concern told reporters.

In July alone the company produced 611,375 million cigarette units, 26% as much as in August 2011.

Tabak-Invest makes Winston, Monte Carlo, Camel, Mild Seven, Magna brands under contracts with JT International (JTI), and West, Golden Gate and Imperial Classic brands under a licence agreement with Imperial Tobacco Group.

The company also makes Korona, its own brand revitalized in August 2010.

Production under contracts with JTI accounted for 77.9% of the Tabak-Invest output in January-August 2012 with 3.415 billion units (down 0.3% on the year), and Imperial Tobacco Group brands accounted for 8.1% with 0.355 billion units (down 9.9% on the year). Tabak-Invest’s own Korona brand output accounted for 14% of the overall output – 0.613 billion, up 8.8 percentage points.

Tabak-Invest had its 2012 production quota cut by 20% to 6.23 billion pieces.