Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 10
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Iran has exported about 750 ton of tobacco over the current fiscal year (starting March 21) indicating 1.5 percent growth year-to-year.
The head of Iranian Tobacco Company, Mohammad Hossein Barkhordar, has said that his company exported 150 ton of tobacco to Azerbaijan and approximately the same amount to Lebanon in the mentioned period, Fars news agency reported Dec. 10.
He added that Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and South Africa imported 9,500 cartons of cigarettes from Iran between March and November which increased four times year-on-year.
He further added that 60 percent of the country's tobacco has been produced in the northern province of Glestan while 24 billion cigarettes have been produced in the country over that past eight years.
However 40 percent of the total amount of cigarettes consumed in Iran has been smuggled to the country, the official added.
During a late November meeting with Belarusian commercial attaché to Tehran, Dmitri Kalchov, director of Iran Center for Planning and Control on Tobacco Ali Asghar Ramzi urged Belarusian tobacco companies to produce cigarettes in the country.
Ramzi added that Iran plans to produce about 10 billion cigarettes with their original brands by the end of the current Iranian year (March 21).
Iran consumed about 55 billion cigarettes over the last fiscal year (March 2014- 2015) while 28.7 billion cigarettes were produced domestically and 13.6 billion were legally imported to the country.