Philip Morris International will invest USD 320 million (EUR 286 million) in a new German plant to make tobacco heating sticks that is expected to be fully operational in early 2019, PMI said.

About 500 jobs will be created at the 80,000 m2 facility in Dresden. Tobacco heating sticks sold under the Heets brand are used in PMI’s IQOS tobacco heating stick. The German factory will complement heat stick production plants in Italy, Switzerland and a plant undergoing conversion in Greece. PMI said it planned to have a heat-stick capacity of 100 billion sticks by the end of 2018.
“This investment represents another step towards a future in which smoke-free products replace cigarettes. Already, over two million people have given up smoking and switched to IQOS, and we know this is just the beginning,” said PMI CEO André Calantzopoulos.