OREANDA-NEWS. Cigarette output in Belarus increased 9.7% on the year in January-March 2013 to 8.9 billion units, according to the National Statistics Committee.

In March alone, Belarus’ cigarette output totalled 3.1 billion pieces (up 4.7% on year, up 7.9% on month).

Cigarette inventories stood at 3 billion units as of April 1, 2013 (118% of the average monthly output), up 14.4% on the month.

Tobacco inventories stood at 2.5 billion units as of March 1, 2013, up 75.2% on the month.

Sales of cigarettes amounted to 6.6 billion units, down 1.4% on the year, including 3.8 billion units sold by retail companies, down 1%.

Belarusian-made cigarettes accounted for 96.1% of all sales, up 0.6 percentage points on the year. The share of imported cigarettes in the total sales amounted to 3.9%, down 0.6 percentage points.