OREANDA-NEWS. January 25, 2013. Belarus’ Grodno-based Neman tobacco factory increased cigarette output 13.9% on the year in 2012 to 26.65 billion units, a Neman administration representative told.

Production under contracts with British-American Tobacco Trading Company reached 5.12 billion units, up 17.3%.

Production under contracts with Japan Tobacco International amounted to 560 million units, down 5.9%; Tobacco International Enterprises Ltd – 0.1 billion units, down 64.3%.

For the home market the company produced 26.82 billion units, up 15.9%.

Cigarette exports totalled 1.14 billion units (up 4.5 times) to the tune of USD 10.6 million (up 4.4 times).

The company exports cigarettes to Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and the Middle East.

Neman was founded in 1861 and transformed into a joint-stock company with all shares controlled by the state in December 2007. Neman had its cigarette production quota for 2012 raised to 25.5 billion units.

Production quotas apply solely to cigarettes produced for Belarus’ home market, while tobacco goods manufactured under export contracts are not subject to any regulations and are not included into the overall quota.