OREANDA-NEWS. Belarus’ Grodno-based Neman tobacco factory increased cigarette output 4.9% on the year in January-August 2013 to 18.34 billion units, a Neman administration representative told.

Production under contracts with British-American Tobacco Trading Company reached 3.24 billion units, down 4.1%.

Production under contracts with Japan Tobacco International amounted to 0.36 billion units, unchanged, Tobacco International Enterprises Ltd - 9.1 million units (82.9% down).

For the home market the company produced 17.44 billion units, down 1.1%.

Cigarette exports totalled 2.98 billion units (up 8.6 times) to the tune of USD 27.9 million (up 8.8 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.