Uganda's largest tobacco company, the British-American Tobacco (BATU), has recorded a net loss for the second year in a row on the back of restructuring costs arising from shutting down the Jinja plant, a company statement has said.

The cigarette manufacturer made a loss of 6.94 billion shillings (3.86 million U.S. dollars) last year compared with 4.87 billion shillings (2.71 million dollars) in 2004.

"The company recorded a net loss mainly due to restructuring costs relating to the planned Jinja factory closure and higher finance costs," the audited results for 2005 was quoted by local press as saying on Tuesday.

"Turnover was down by 12 percent to 127.2 billion shillings (70. 67 million dollars) mainly due to lower leaf exports and carry- over effects from the previous year's quality of the export leaf," the statement said.

BATU's board did not recommend a dividend to shareholders due to the poor results.

Source: Xinhua