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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Thursday, 25.04.2024, 02:23

British American Tobacco Latvia shuts down its production plant in Riga

Nina Kolyako, BC, Riga, 28.09.2009.Print version
British American Tobacco Latvia is shutting down its production plant in Riga (Miera Street 58) at the end of September 2009, and releasing 223 employees. The main reasons – the high excise tax of recent years, which has significantly brought up prices for cigarettes and boosted the black market.

As Corporation Relations Manager Marita Jansone informed LETA, the plant will be evacuated and handed over to the leasor – the state of Latvia – without any penalties. Cigarettes heretofore made by British American Tobacco Latvia will now be made by other plants in Europe as part of an overall reorganization plan.

 

In the past two years, the legal cigarette retail market has shrunk by 40 percent, hitting low-price cigarettes particularly hard.

 

British American Tobacco Latvia is one of Latvia's major taxpayers, paying LVL 40 million in 2008.

 

Among the brands manufactured in Riga are "Kent" and "Vogue".

 

The cigarette factory at Miera 58 has been there since 1912, and was formerly called Rigas Tabakas fabrika, before that – Maikapars tabakas fabrika.





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