The association of Russian tobacco distributors Grandtabak is reported to be disbanded.

Grandtabak’s president Sergey Shelekhov said that he has sent in his resignation, and a decision on phasing down the distributors’ association has been made. According to Shelekhov, Grandtabak has exhausted its agenda, especially that all major cigarette makers have set up distributing branches of their own or reduced the number of their distributors to a narrow circle. Thus, the interests of tobacco distributors now fully coincide with those of cigarette manufacturers. The lobbying of the trade’s interests with the legislative authorities can be accomplished by the remaining two tobacco associations operating in Russia, Tabakprom and the council for tobacco industry development. However, Vassiliy Terevtsov, Tabakprom’s general director, did not support the idea of disbanding the distributors’ association. (vt)