Britain's Imperial Tobacco Group has reported a 40 per cent jump in annual profits today and outlined plans to expand in China and Turkey to fuel further growth.
The company, the world's fourth-biggest tobacco firm, saw profits lifted by last year's takeover of Reemtsma and raised its forecast for cost savings from integrating the German company.
Imperial is expanding into the huge Chinese cigarette market, where it plans to launch its West brand early next year to tie in with West's sponsorship of the McLaren racing team at China's first Formula One race in September in Shanghai.
"The Chinese market is huge, one third of the world market, and the potential is huge," said chief executive Mr Gareth Davis in a conference call after full-year results.
The group said it had signed a 10-year deal with Yuxi Hongta Group for the production and distribution of West cigarettes in south west China, to sell to the world's biggest smokers, the Chinese, who smoke 1.7 trillion cigarettes a year.
Imperial, which decided against bidding in the now-cancelled Turkish Tekel tobacco privatisation, said it would set up its own "greenfield" production site near Ismir in south west Turkey by January 2005 in the world's seventh-largest cigarette market.