Xu Dan

‘No one can get around the fact that our rules stipulate that no new cigarette capacity will be built,' Xu Dan, the Tobacco Monopoly's spokeswoman, said in an interview on the 14 January.

China is seen as a key market for the world's leading tobacco companies to source further growth.

Jan du Plessis, BAT's new chairman, yesterday ruled out a bid for Gallaher Group, the Surrey-based maker of Benson & Hedges cigarettes, and Altadis, the Franco-Spanish tobacco company.He said that BAT had sufficient organic growth potential and would target smaller acquisition opportunities.

China has three "rather small" Sino-foreign cigarette ventures, said Xu Dan, a Beijing-based spokeswoman with State Tobacco Monopoly.
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Three days after British American, which makes Benson Hedges and Dunhill, announced it had won approval to set up a joint venture with China Eastern Investment, Xu of the State Tobacco Monopoly denied in an interview that approval had been given. .
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China has three "rather small" Sino-foreign cigarette ventures, said Xu Dan, a Beijing-based spokeswoman with State Tobacco Monopoly.
...
Three days after British American, which makes Benson Hedges and Dunhill, announced it had won approval to set up a joint venture with China Eastern Investment, Xu of the State Tobacco Monopoly denied in an interview that approval had been given. .
...
China has three "rather small" Sino-foreign cigarette ventures, said Xu Dan, a Beijing-based spokeswoman with State Tobacco Monopoly.
...
Three days after British American, which makes Benson Hedges and Dunhill, announced it had won approval to set up a joint venture with China Eastern Investment, Xu of the State Tobacco Monopoly denied in an interview that approval had been given. .
...
China has three "rather small" Sino-foreign cigarette ventures, said Xu Dan, a Beijing-based spokeswoman with State Tobacco Monopoly.
...
Three days after British American, which makes Benson Hedges and Dunhill, announced it had won approval to set up a joint venture with China Eastern Investment, Xu of the State Tobacco Monopoly denied in an interview that approval had been given. .

"Philip Morris and Longyan Cigarette Factory are discussing cooperative opportunities," Xu Dan, a press officer with the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) told XFN-Asia.

"Talks might lead to an OEM arrangement under which all Marlboro brands made at Longyan Cigarette will be exported, or a license agreement which allows local sale of the products."

However, Xu ruled out chances of a cigarette manufacturing joint venture between the two as the government had banned such ventures since 1993.

China already has an excess tobacco capacity and has cut the number of domestic tobacco makers down to 80 from 185 a few years ago, with more small plants to be shut down or merged.

"Any large new cigarette plants, domestic or foreign-funded, are unlikely to be approved in the near term," she said.