Uzbekistan, Tashkent, July 4 /Trend D.Azizov/
British American Tobacco Uzbekistan has increased its net profit by 51.9 percent to 158 76 billion soum in Uzbekistan, the company said on Wednesday.
The company's assets grew by 17.4 percent - up to 798.842 billion soum. The production of cigarettes was 11, 859 billion units past year, which is 15 percent less than in 2010.
The actual volume of tobacco leaf purchases amounted to 8,000 tons at the end of December 2011 compared to 8.6 thousand tons a year earlier.
The annual report states that "the export of cigarettes were significantly lower than envisaged in the business plan because of the measures taken on import quotas in neighboring countries, at the same time, exports of tobacco leaf exceeded performance of the business
plan by seven percent."
The company notes that the total market for cigarette production fell by 15 percent in Uzbekistan over the past year.
As previously reported, British American Tobacco bought 51 percent of the corporation Uztabak in 1994 and created a joint venture UzBAT (now BAT Uzbekistan).
The authorized capital of the company is 5.669 billion soum. Currently the share of the British company in the authorized capital of the joint venture increased to 97.35 percent, 2.25 percent is owned by the state, the labor collective - 0.4 percent of the shares.
The total investment amounted to more than $300 million for these years. Some $100 million of these accounts for the cost of a cigarette factory, built in Samarkand in 1997 with capacity of producing 12 billion cigarettes a year.
The company sells about 30 cigarette brands in the market of Uzbekistan, including such well-known international brands as Lucky Strike, Kent, Dunhill, Viceroy and Pall Mall, as well as national brands Xon, Karvon, Astra.
The official exchange rate on July 4 is 1888,64 soum/$ 1