ROMANIA: By 2022 BAT will invest 800 million euros in its Ploiesti factory | Progresiv
British American Tobacco (BAT) cigarette producer announced that it will invest 800 million euros in the next 5 years in the Ploiesti factory. The investment, which will initially generate 200 new jobs in Romania, will allow the expansion of the innovative glo heating tobacco product in Europe, starting with the second half of 2018. 
A new production hall will be built from scratch for the manufacture of Neostiks, the tobacco consumables that work with the glo device. In total, the newly created production space will have a total area of over 7,000 square meters. The investment will also increase the production capacities of traditional cigarettes.
The Romanian factory will be the only supplier of Neostiks for Europe.
"We are proud that our factory in Ploiesti will become a strategic European center for the production and export of Neostiks for our innovative glo heating device. We are increasing production to support launches in other European countries", said Ram Addanki, Director of Central and Southern Europe, British American Tobacco.
The Ploiesti factory will also provide Neostiks for the Romanian market, after the glo was launched in Romania for the first time in the European Union at the end of last year. In the six months since launching, first in Bucharest and then in 17 other major cities across Romania, nearly 25,000 smokers adopted the glo technology.
"At present, 60% of products manufactured in Romania are going to export to 45 other countries, and this percentage will increase to 70% as a result of new investments. We want to continue investing in Romania and we hope that the Romanian Government will provide the necessary predictability. As the black market for tobacco is one of the most serious challenges for us and for our investments as well as for government and consumer incomes, it is encouraging that the Romanian Government announced plans to secure the Romanian borders by the end of the year and created a working group to identify the best legal solutions to the illicit issue", added Ram Addanki.
The British American Tobacco factory in Ploiesti is already one of BAT's most technologically advanced manufacturing units globally, after an investment of nearly 310 million euros to date. With its new production capacities, the BAT factory in Ploiesti will become one of the five largest BAT production units in the world.
British American Tobacco is the largest player on the tobacco market in Romania, with a market share of 55%. According to the most recent reports, in 2016, BAT Romania achieved business of 8.1 billion lei, up by 11% from the previous year, and the company's profit last year was over 672 million lei, rising with approximately 55% compared to 2015.
