Eastern Co.has signed a five-year cooperation agreement with British American Tobacco, reports Tegaranet.
Under the deal, Eastern will produce Viceroy cigarettes in Egypt, while BAT will carry out the marketing and distribution.
The deal is effective from 2014 through 2019.
Tobacco factories feature prominently on a list of leading Russian exporters recently published by Expert Severo-Zapad.
According to the business magazine, British American Tobacco in St. Petersburg leads the pack with export revenues of $91.9 million last year. Philip Morris Izhora exported tobacco products worth $70.9 million in 2012, up 15.1 percent from the previous. JTI’s Petro factory came next with exports worth $57.2 million, up 20.7 percent from 2011. JTI’s Kres Neva tobacco processing plant saw its export declining 56.6 percent to $14 million.
The Pan African Tobacco Group recently broke ground for a $20 million tobacco processing factory in Arua, Uganda. The new facility, which includes a 30,000 square meter warehouse, will have a production capacity of 10 tons per hour.
“As part of this expansion, PTG will manufacture high quality products, while creating hundreds of well-paying jobs in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, the founder of PTG. “I am delighted to announce that our projects are in progress.”
David Wakikona, Uganda’s trade minister, laid the factory’s first stone during a ceremony on May 20. He described the site as a source of jobs and timely investment, while praising the commitment of PTG to improve tobacco production and the quality of exports to other regions.
“The opening of a plant of this size in a rural area is a defining moment in the history of Uganda,” said Wakikona. “It is all the more important given the jobs that will be created.”
Upon completion, five months from now, the factory will employ 200 permanent and 2,000 seasonal workers. It will also contract with 1,500 drivers to transport its products to destinations throughout the region. The number of Arua leaf growers supplying PTG will increase to 13,000.
PTG already has a strong presence in the region, where it invests $18 million a year in tobacco cultivation.
A University of Canterbury (UC) health sciences researcher has called for New Zealand’s public places to be declared smoke-free, according to a Voxy story.
As well as the more usual places targeted: bus stops, train stations, ferry terminals and beaches; the researcher includes streets and urban centers.
In fact, UC lecturer, Dr. Mark Wallace-Bell, was quoted as saying that bans should be imposed in any public space used by children and non-smokers.
Wallace-Bell wants the supply of tobacco to be limited by reducing the number of retail outlets, in part by forcing retailers to undergo costly registrations.
He especially wants the number of retailers to be reduced in ‘low socio-economic areas’ because, he says, the tobacco industry targets the poor and profits from them.
Overall, Wallace-Bell would like to see New Zealand’s approximately 10,000 tobacco retailers reduced by more than half.
It appears that he wants limits placed on the nicotine content of any tobacco sold in New Zealand and for nicotine eventually to be phased out, so as to reduce and then end tobacco addiction.
And he wants the tobacco industry to pay more to clear up what he describes as ‘the mess that it makes’.
Wallace-Bell said that only with such hard hitting measures in place would it be possible to achieve the ambitious goal of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025.
Universal Corporation has announced net income for the fiscal year ended March 31, at $132.8 million, or $4.66 per diluted share, compared with the previous year’s net income of $92.1 million, or $3.25 per diluted share.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013, net income was $26.1 million, or $0.92 per diluted share, compared with the previous year’s fourth quarter net income of $25.8 million or $0.91 per diluted share.
“I am proud of the successful results that we achieved in fiscal year 2013,” said chairman, president, and CEO, George C. Freeman, III.
“Despite smaller crops, rising leaf production costs, and margin pressures in most regions, we delivered better performance than we had anticipated at the beginning of the fiscal year.
“Some of this success was attributable to the sale of previously uncommitted inventories and carryover shipments of the prior year’s large African and South American crops. In addition, we benefited from lower selling, general, and administrative costs. Certain of these costs reductions were unpredictable – such as currency re-measurement and exchange gains – and may not be recurring, while others were a result of our targeted cost reduction and efficiency improvement efforts.
“In fiscal year 2013, we also generated over $230 million in cash flow from our operations and returned nearly $70 million to our shareholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases.
“In addition to our financial achievements, our strong local management teams around the globe continued to advance our goal of providing compliant leaf, produced in a sustainable and competitive manner, to our customers.
“As we move into fiscal year 2014, we are seeing crop sizes increase in many of the key sourcing areas for flue-cured and Burley tobacco in response to strong global leaf demand. Sales activity has also been robust, especially for quality flavor flue-cured styles of tobacco.
“Burley tobacco remains in high demand, and current year crop levels are not expected to meet global requirements.
“At the same time, our uncommitted inventories are near historic lows, limiting our ability to glean additional volumes from this source. In addition to the low uncommitted inventories, we will not have the benefit of carryover crop shipments which helped our results in the first and second quarters of fiscal year 2013. While we look forward to another productive year, total volumes shipped may be lower in fiscal year 2014.”
Anti-tobacco activists in Indonesia have mounted a sticker pasting campaign in an attempt to raise awareness of regulations banning smoking on public transport, according to a piece posted on Beritajakarta.com.
The campaign, which was staged at the Senen Terminal, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday, was conducted by students from IndonesiaUniversity’s public health faculty, who pasted thousands of no-smoking stickers on to the windows of public transportation vehicles.
The students were helped by police and transportation department officers.
The stickers featured no-smoking slogans, a picture of someone suffering from mouth cancer, applicable no-smoking rules and regulations, and a hotline for people to call to report incidents of smoking on public transport.
Despite the rules being in place, the head of the Indonesia Consumers Board Foundation, Tulus Abadi, said 57 per cent of crews and 43 per cent of passengers smoked while travelling on public transport.
British American Tobacco has appointed Sir Ronnie Flanagan as its new external consultant and advisor on tackling the illegal tobacco trade.
‘Sir Ronnie, a highly respected global policing, organised crime and counter terrorism expert, brings a wealth of experience to the role having previously served in a number of high profile positions,’ BAT said in a note posted on its website. ‘These include serving as Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary which became the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and as the country’s most senior police officer as the Home Office Chief Inspector of Constabulary for the United Kingdom.
‘The main focus of Sir Ronnie’s role at British American Tobacco, will be to advise on and advocate the company’s global strategy for tackling the trafficking of illegal tobacco –something that accounted for the sale of 660 billion illegal cigarettes in 2012 alone and costs governments around the world approximately $40bn a year in lost taxes.
‘Today’s black market in tobacco involves criminal gangs producing counterfeit cigarettes, cross-border smuggling and large-scale tax evasion that governments can little afford in these challenging economic times. Up to 12% of global tobacco sales are estimated to be illegal, making cigarettes one of the most commonly traded products on the black market. When combined, the global illegal market is roughly equivalent in size to the world’s third largest multinational tobacco company by volume.
“There is a misconception that tobacco trafficking is a ‘victimless crime’,” said Sir Ronnie. “This is wrong. It is now a multi-billion dollar, global business run by serious crime organisations. It funds all manner of criminality, including gun smuggling, people trafficking and drugs, and is also linked to the funding of terrorism – something that governments are becoming increasingly aware of.
“I know the misery that tobacco trafficking creates and am pleased to be working with British American Tobacco which is taking a lead role in fighting it. I am fully committed to doing everything in my power to alert people around the world that this is a fight we simply must win.”
Pat Heneghan, global head of anti-illicit trade at BAT, said the company was delighted to have Sir Ronnie on board to help in its fight against tobacco trafficking.
“We believe Sir Ronnie will be a major asset to British American Tobacco and the industry in general,” he said. “He fully understands the seriousness of the illegal tobacco trade and shares our belief that the tobacco industry, governments, law enforcement agencies and customs officials around the world must work collaboratively to defeat it.”
In a distinguished career, Sir Ronnie joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 1970, before being appointed chief constable. He then continued as the first chief constable of the RUC’s successor, the PSNI, before taking up his Home Office role.
In addition, Sir Ronnie has held a variety of policing posts in the Middle East. He also succeeded Lord Condon as chairman of the International Cricket Council’s anti-corruption and security unit.
Japan Tobacco Inc. announced today that it will grant scholarships to nine students from Asia as part of its 2013 Asian Scholarship Program of human resource development.
The program was established in 1998 to promote international exchange and human resource development in Asia by offering financial support to Asian students.
Through this program, Asian graduate school and doctoral course students currently or imminently financing their own studies at 37 universities and colleges selected by JT from around the nation will receive ¥150,000 each month for up to two years. Each year, JT awards scholarships to about 10 applicants, and, in total, 182 students have been awarded scholarships since 1998.
As well as supporting study and research in Japan, JT offers several opportunities for students to experience Japanese culture, establish networking with young JT employees and visit JT facilities.
The JT Group has established various social activities under the JT Group Social Contribution Policy, activities focusing on: social welfare, arts and culture, environmental protection, and disaster relief.
Philip Morris International will buy Grupo Carso’s 20 percent share in Philip Morris Mexico (PMM)) for approximately $700 million. The purchasing price is subject to a potential adjustment based on PMM’s performance over three years ending two fiscal years after the closing of the purchase.
The transaction, which will give PMI a 100 percent share in PMM, is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2013, subject to the approval of the Mexican antitrust authority.
PMI’s relationship with Grupo Carso, and its founder Carlos Slim Helú, spans more than 30 years. “We would like to express our profound gratitude to Carlos Slim Helú and Grupo Carso, with whom we have built a successful partnership that has positioned PMM as the leading tobacco company in Mexico,” said André Calantzopoulos, CEO of PMI.
“We have benefited greatly from our partnership with Grupo Carso and we remain confident in our ability to excel in this important market in the years ahead,” added James Mortensen, PMI’s president, Latin America and Canada Region.
“After more than 30 years of a very successful partnership of great harmony and cooperation that led PMM to continuous market share growth in the Mexican tobacco market, it is now time to leave PMM in the hands of one of the best management teams and organizations in the world, led by Louis C. Camilleri and André Calantzopoulos,” said Slim Helú, who is also a member of PMI’s board of directors.
In 2012, PPM held a 73.5 percent share of Mexico’s 33.6 billion-stick cigarette market. PMI’s flagship brand, Marlboro, is the leading brand in Mexico with a 2012 market share of 53.6 percent.
British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has expressed its support for what it describes as a balanced and evidence-based public-places smoking bill currently being given a public hearing in Lagos, according to a story in the Nigerian Tribune.
The company lauded Nigeria’s House of Assembly for producing a bill to address the issue of smoking in public.
It said it believed that a workable bill would help reduce the impact of tobacco on the country’s public health.
Also speaking at the public hearing, the Assistant Secretary General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Anthony Ibafor, said his organization was against the bill because, in the long run, it would lead to unemployment.
Distributors and representatives of restaurants, bars and café owners also agreed that the passage of the bill, in its current form, would have a negative impact on their businesses.
They asked the legislators to include provision in the bill for designated smoking areas, and they appealed for enough time to be allowed for them to meet display-sign requirements.
Nurudeen Ogbara, who represented the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance, which comprises 40 civil society organizations, said the bill had limited potential to aid the cause of public health.
The head of regulatory affairs at BATN, Sola Dosunmu, said BATN had always supported appropriate regulation for the tobacco industry in Nigeria.
But he added that any proposed regulation should not force regulated businesses out of operation.
Dosunmu advocated a ban on the sale of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18, higher than the age of 15 proposed in the bill.