China's Tobacco Production in 1998 ����As a result of reform carried out and positive effort made for reinforced monopoly management of the tobacco trade and the struggle launched to fight against illicit tobacco trade from abroad there has been brought about in recent two years a basically balanced tobacco market demand with production. Statistics show that last year China had a total of 33.493 million cartons of tobacco produced to show 0.5% less than 1997; and a sales amount of 32.848 million cartons of tobacco for a cut of 3.1% than the previous year. Yet by country's tobacco industry there was still a total of RMB$95 billion yuan of profits and taxes and an export amount worth of US$500 million that had been achieved when a balanced market demand was presented with tobacco supply. ���� Economicnews 1999-01-18 Page2 Full Story in Chinese