OREANDA-NEWS. Belarus' Grodno-based Neman tobacco factory increased cigarette output 3.5% on the year in January-November 2013 to 25.25 billion units, a Neman administration representative told.

Production under contracts with British-American Tobacco Trading Company reached 4.37 billion units in Jan-Nov 2013 (down 5.4% on the year).

Production under contracts with Japan Tobacco International amounted to 480 million units, (up 0.8%), Tobacco International Enterprises Ltd - 0.09 billion units (down 88.2%).

Cigarette exports totalled 4.66 billion units (up 4.6 times) to the tune of USD 44 million (up 4.7 times).

The company exports cigarettes to Lithuania, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and the Middle East.

Neman was founded in 1861 and transformed into a joint-stock company with all shares controlled by the state in December 2007. Neman had its cigarette production quota for 2012 raised to 25.5 billion units.

Production quotas apply solely to cigarettes produced for Belarus' home market, while tobacco goods manufactured under export contracts are not subject to any regulations and are not included into the overall quota.