After a serious decline in raw tobacco manufacturing registered in the first four months of the year, tobacco production in Ukraine seems to be gaining pace and has almost reached last year’s level, report the national news agencies.

3,322 tonnes of raw tobacco, including industrially made alternate materials and extracts, were made over five months, just five tonnes less year-on-year, after a 128 per cent monthly production hike shown in May. Recent years have been a hard time for Ukrainian leaf manufacturing. In 2004, the yearly output of raw tobacco material had declined 14.6 per cent from the previous year and amounted to no more than 7,133 tonnes. (vt)