Alliance One International and Öz-Ege Tütün A.S. announced a joint venture to process and store oriental tobacco.

Alliance One’s Turkish subsidiary and Öz-Ege said they would maintain
separate grower contracting, agronomy, buying and selling operations. Both companies would contract for processing and storage with the joint venture co-located at the Öz-Ege facility in Torbali, Izmir province.
“We are pleased that our new state of the art facility positions the OTP (Oryantal Tütün Paketleme Sanayi AS) joint venture as a leader in processing and storage in the Turkish market”, said Peter Sikkel, Alliance One chief executive officer.
Mahmut Özgener, chairman of the board at Öz-Ege, said, “Turkey is the world leader for high quality aromatic oriental tobacco, a key ingredient in many cigarette blends around the globe. To drive improved value for our customers we have developed this processing and storage joint venture in our modern, efficient facility.”