Agrocom Holding that incorporates, among other companies, Donskoy Tabak cigarette making facility and its sale branch, plans to increase cigarette output to 22 billion sticks in 2008 vs 15.8 billion made in 2005 and thus bring its market share to 7 per cent, said the group’s finance director Sergey Bortsov in an interview with the Prime-TASS news agency.

After moving production to a newly constructed site in an industrial area of the Rostov city earlier this year, Donskoy Tabak is revving up production and aims to bring the volume of sales to 17.2 billion pieces by the end of the year, nearly 6 per cent up from last year’s 16.8 billion sticks. The company has already posted a 16.3 per сent year-on-year growth in sales volume over the first five months of the year 2006. Noticeable changes are also planned for the plant’s brand portfolio, with the current 35 per cent share of ovals to be reduced to 20 per cent, Bortsov elaborated. (vt)