Standard Commercial Opens Tobacco Processing Plant in Russia (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

 Standard Commercial Opens Tobacco Processing Plant in Russia

 St. Petersburg, Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- OOO Cres Neva, the Russian unit of
Standard Commercial
 Corp., a U.S. tobacco and wool processor, opened a processing plant in the
Leningrad region.

 The factory, built at a cost of $18.5 million will process annually as much
as 20,000 tons of tobacco
 stem, known as cres. ``Our aim is to expand and grow our business in Russia
to be the largest supplier
 of tobacco leaf and cres products to the Russian market,'' said Alec
Murray, Standard's board
 chairman.

 Wilson, North Caroline-based Standard has been selling raw tobacco products
to Russian cigarette
 manufacturers for 50 years and had global sales last year of about $1
billion. Recently, Standard
 invested in production in China, India, and Kyrgystan.

 Russia is one of the world's top three tobacco markets, consuming about 250
billion cigarettes a year.
 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., British American Tobacco Plc and Philip Morris
Cos., have invested
 nearly $1 billion in production there.

 The company said the Leningrad region's law on investment was an important
factor in their decision to
 build the plant. Under the law, investors are freed from local taxes until
the project recoups its costs.
 NYSE/AMEX delayed 20 min. NASDAQ delayed 15 min.