Grants Will Also Come to Tobacco Growers

President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on the state support of the development of tobacco growing on October 5. The document provides for the allocation of subsidies to producers of raw tobacco from the state budget.

The subsidy will be 0.05 AZN (5 gepiks) for each kilogram of dried tobacco and 10 kg of raw tobacco sold to processing companies.

Subsidies apply to tobacco manufactured this year. The Cabinet is ordered within two months to determine the rules for granting subsidies to tobacco growers.

Thus, special subsidies from the state budget will be received by producers of wheat, rice, cotton, tobacco, and silkworm cocoon.

According to the State Statistics Committee, in 2016 the area under tobacco plantations in Azerbaijan increased from 1,400 to 2,400 hectares. As of September 1st, 2,579 tons of raw tobacco was gathered, which is 7.6% more than in the same period of 2015.

In the first eight months of 2016, 1,193.6 tons of tobacco was fermented, which is 27.3% more than in the previous year.

In the first half of this year, Azerbaijan exported 1,324.6 tons of fermented tobacco. Revenues from the export amounted to 5,343,400 US dollars.

Tobacco is produced mainly in the Sheki-Zagatala and Masalli regions. Tobacco is processed mainly in the Zagatala tobacco factory. -----08D