Cigarette producer Japan Tobacco International (JTI) will expand its production facility in Romania, in Pipera area of Bucharest, with an investment program of EUR 25 million, which involved the acquisition of new equipments and hiring 140 new workers. The expansion project should be finalized in the first part of next year, the company has announced.

The first production lines of this expansion should be ready and functional in the second half of September, according to JTI. The company has so far invested EUR 45 million in its factory near Bucharest.

“The development of our business depends on the legislation, the fiscal policy, as well as of a strategy of fighting cigarette smuggling. […] Cigarette smuggling is on a downwards trend: from 36.2 percent in January 2010, to 15.7 percent in July 2011. This meant an increase in new sales, new development opportunities, the creation of new jobs,” said Neil Coupland, General Manager JTI Romania.

JTI ended 2010 with sales of EUR 463 million, a growth compared to EUR 425 million in 2009 in Romania.

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(photo source: Photoxpress)