The Tobacco Board of India is looking to boost exports of tobacco leaf and tap old and new markets, the Financial Chronical reported.

Earlier restrictions set by the Reserve Bank of India which prevented foreign companies from participating in tobacco-related activities have been amended to allow global companies to set up offices in the country, the newspaper reported.
The “tobacco board will look to aid in export promotion with the support of Indian embassies. It will tap old markets like Russia and enter new markets like Kazakhstan, Uruguay and unexplored countries like China,” board chairman K Gopal was quoted as saying.

Growers experienced “lukewarm” 2015 auction sales in which only 46.5 million kilgrammes of tobacco had been purchased by the end of June – less than half of the over 100 million kg sold in the same period in 2014, the newspaper reported last week.
Traders have now agreed to purchase all 172 million kg of India's authorised crop, the newspaper said.