Eastern’s production up

Egypt’s Eastern Company said yesterday that it had produced 83 billion cigarettes during the 2016-17 fiscal year (July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017), up from 80 billion during the previous year, according to an Ahram Online story citing the Al-Ahram Arabic news website.
In a filing to the Egyptian stock Market, the company said that the value of its sales on the local market had been EG£36.7 billion during 2016-17, up from EG£ 28.5 billion during the previous year.
Exports, meanwhile, were worth EG£103.5 billion in 2016-17, up from EG£66.6 billion during 2015-16.
In January 2016, the US dollar was valued at about EG£8, while in January 2017 it was valued at EG£18 following the Egyptian government’s decision to devalue the currency.
Eastern said it had produced 16,800 tons of shisha tobacco during 2016-17, down from 17,600 tons during the previous year.
About 20.2 percent of Egyptians over the age of 15 are smokers, according to figures for 2016 released by the state-run statistics agency CAPMAS. So of Egypt’s population of 93 million, an estimated 12.6 million people are smokers.
About 23.8 percent of people aged 25 to 44 are smokers.
The average annual spend on smoking for households where all members smoke is EG£3,968.