OREANDA-NEWS. July 23, 2010. Cigarette output in Belarus increased 20.1% on the year in January-June 2010 to 11.2 billion units, according to the National Statistics Committee.

In value terms, cigarette production totaled 456 billion Belarusian rubles (Br), up 23.3% on the year.

Grodno-based state-run Neman produced 7.739 billion cigarettes, up 24.7% on the year. Privately-owned Tabak-Invest, based in Minsk, accounts for the remaining output.

Inventories of cigarettes amounted to 1 billion units as of July 1, 2010, 65.6% of the average production volume. In value terms, cigarette inventories were at 54.5 billion rubles, 75.8% of the average monthly output.

Sales of cigarettes amounted to 11.3 billion units, up 11.7% on the year, including 8.4 billion units by retail companies, up 15%.

Belarusian-made cigarettes accounted for 94.8% of all sales, up 2.4 percentage points on the year.