31 March, 2022

State of Tobacco in Azerbaijan

“Almost all tobacco products previously imported to Azerbaijan are produced locally at “Tabaterra” Closed Joint-Stock Company, a resident of Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park, as a result, the level of tobacco imports into the country has been minimized.”

This was stated by Director of “Tabaterra” Closed Joint-Stock Company (CJSC) Elman Javanshir.

Speaking about tobacco, the largest raw material used in the manufacturing, E. Javanshir regretfully stated that the quality of local produce makes it impossible to use it in local and international brands produced at Tabaterra CJSC. At present, the main goal is to gradually bring the quality of local tobacco in conformity with world standards and realize its use in local and international brands: “The main obstacles to the development of tobacco in Azerbaijan are objective factors such as soil, climate and precipitation. Tabaterra has already developed an action plan to improve the quality of local tobacco. This plan includes the selection of fast-growing varieties of tobacco suitable for local climate, the provision of educational training to farmers to provide them with knowledge on proper agro-technical service, and application of the best practices of the world’s leading tobacco producers.

E. Javanshir said that currently the net profit of farmers per hectare is about 500 AZN. The main goal is to increase this amount up to 3 times by 2025: “We plan to achieve this goal by increasing productivity per hectare, as well as increasing the price of green tobacco from farmers. Unfortunately, current knowledge and experience of farmers working in this field is not up to date. In this regard, with the support of our international partners such as BAT, JTI and ITG, we plan to engage farmers in training, instill in them the secrets of this field, and share with them the advanced knowledge and experience of the world’s largest producers.

Tabaterra CJSC started operating in 2018 as a resident of Sumgayit Chemical Industrial Park. The company has 8 production lines with a capacity to produce over 14 billion cigarettes annually. Currently, the company is producing both private brands as well as international brands under license of world’s largest cigarette manufacturers as British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Group.