Cigarette maker British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya posted a huge jump in profit to 3.2 billion shillings (about 45 million U.S. dollars) in 2005 from 1.2 billion shillings (about 17 million dollars) in 2004.

The Kenyan cigarette maker, a subsidiary of the London-based BAT, said Tuesday that export and contract manufacture volumes increased by 158 percent, due to huge consumption of the company products in Somalia, Djibouti and Rwanda.

BAT Kenya is now exporting to new markets, including Ethiopia, Uganda, Congo, the Comoros, Mauritius, Malawi and Zambia, Simeon Welford, BAT Kenya Managing Director said on Tuesday.

The company's profit grew amid a huge campaign in Africa to limit smoking in public and plans to strictly regulate the tobacco industry, which is blamed for Africa's spiraling health crisis, including increases in cancer and other chest ailments.

"One important issue in 2006 will be the regulation of the tobacco industry," Welford said, giving a cautious welcome to plans by the Kenyan parliament to introduce a new tobacco legislation to ban smoking in public and limit the sale of cigarette.

BAT has been forced to close its manufacturing subsidiary in Kampala, Uganda after the Ugandan government successfully moved a vote to ban smoking in public, forcing the cigarette maker out of the manufacturing scene.

The Nairobi factory has become a regional center of manufacturing for eastern and central African countries and the Horn of Africa, as well as some markets of the Indian Ocean islands and southern African countries, except South Africa.

Source: Xinhua