China has made a major breakthrough in its tobacco industry, and the first stage of the large-scale reshuffle in the sector has been achieved. From now on, China will try to establish 10 large-scale tobacco enterprises to face challenges in the global tobacco market, announced the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration on Wednesday.

The Kunming and Qujing cigarette manufacturers will be regrouped into the Hongyun (Group) Corp Ltd, said Xing Wanli, spokesman of the administration at a press conference on Wednesday.

From now on, among the 44 manufacturers, leading enterprises with an annual capacity of more than a million cartons of cigarettes will be reshuffled. As a result, 10 large-scale tobacco enterprises with brand names will be established.

As the first step, such an enterprise is expected to have a production capacity of more than 3 million cartons of cigarettes. They will reach production capability of more than 3 million cartons for each single brand.

The figures released by the administration on the same day show that only Hongyun and Hongta groups can have such a production capacity while no enterprises can turn out more than 3 million cartons with one brand in the nation.

By People's Daily Online