The Iranian Tobacco Company (ITC) will build a cigarette plant in Zimbabwe as part of an agreement reached between officials of the two countries.

Reports in local media on Thursday said an agreement for the construction of the ITC�s plant in Zimbabwe had been finalized in a meeting earlier in the day in Harare between the company�s CEO Mohammad Sheikhan and Zimbabwe�s agriculture minister Anxious Jongwe Masuka.

The plant will produce ITC�s main cigarette brand Bahman using tobacco supplies from Zimbabwean farms, said the reports.

The ITC said on its website that the agreement signed in Harare will also enable the company to receive tobacco supplies from Zimbabwe to use it in its cigarette factories in Iran or for re-exporting to Central Asian countries.

Other Iranian-made cigarette brands will be exported to Zimbabwe under the agreement reached on Thursday, said the company.

Iran�s tobacco sector has grown in recent years amid lower imports of international brands and increasing demand for local products.

The boom has enabled the ITC, a company established in 1928, to revive many if its idle plants and to launch exports to several countries in West and Central Asia.

 

 

By PRESS TV�