Papastratos sees tobacco exports rise
Historic Greek tobacco producer Papastratos, now a Philip Morris International subsidiary, has seen its exports revert the company to profits in 2014, and is now launching an ambitious investment plan.
“The good financial results are due mostly thanks to the significant increase in exports from our plant at Aspropyrgos [west of Athens] to more than 30 countries, as well as from our logistics and exports facility at Agrinio [in western Greece], which supplies over 10 factories of our parent company,” Papastratos chairman Nikitas Theofilopoulos told Kathimerini.
Theofilopoulos added that “exports partly offset the decline of the domestic cigarette market, which reaches up to 50 percent today in comparison with 2009.”
The company announced in December an investment of 25 million euros for the installation of seven new production lines and for a new tobacco processing unit.
It is also in the process of reorganizing and improving its distribution network around Greece for the first time since 1950.
“Our target is to soon have the most modern and most reliable distribution network in the country, the only one that will be able to distribute products to 25,000 sales points across Greece on a daily basis,” said the company’s chairman.