OREANDA-NEWS. January 21, 2013. Belarus’ privately-owned LLC Tabak-Invest, based in Minsk, increased the output of tobaccos by 5.1% in 2012 to 6.55 billion pieces, an official with Belgospischeprom concern told reporters.

In December alone the company produced 411.537 million cigarette units, up 52.7% on the year, but down 22.3% on the month.

Tabak-Invest makes Winston, Monte Carlo, Camel, Mild Seven, Magna brands under contracts with JT International (JTI), and West, Golden Gate and Imperial Classic brands under a licence agreement with Imperial Tobacco Group.

The company also makes Korona, its own brand revitalized in August 2010. In December 2012 the company resumed proprietary cigarette brand Fort.

Production under contracts with JTI accounted for 79.8% of the Tabak-Invest output in January-November 2012 with 5.228 billion units (down 2.3% on the year), and Imperial Tobacco Group brands accounted for 7.4% with 0.488 billion units (down 24.8% on the year).

Tabak-Invest’s own Korona brand output accounted for 12.7% of the overall output – 0.835 billion.

Tabak-Invest had its 2012 production quota cut by 20% to 6.23 billion pieces.