Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- UZBAT (part of the BAT Group) continues to modernize and diversify its two enterprises in Samarkand region. The company invested US$1 million in a shop for filling tobacco-free nicotine packs.

On 17 August 2020, at the Samarkand cigarette factory of UZBAT, a workshop for packaging nicotine tobacco-free snus (nicotine packs without tobacco) began to work.

The company invested US$1 million in this project. Within its framework, three packaging machines and several dozen units of other equipment, special production furniture and accessories were purchased. A number of production facilities went through engineering and construction work, during which appropriate sanitary and hygienic conditions were created.

Semi-automated packaging of products into consumer containers has been established. Within the framework of the three-shift work schedule, 75 new jobs were created, which were provided mainly to residents of the Farkhod settlement of Samarkand. This is a significant event for the local community, given the rise in unemployment amid the socio-economic recession caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus epidemic, as well as the gathering pace of the return to their homeland of Samarkand residents who previously worked abroad.

One of the enterprises of Samarkand region has already localized the production of group containers - cardboard boxes. Negotiations are underway for potential cooperation with local manufacturers of PP and plastic consumer packaging.

The prospects for exporting products to Ukraine and Belarus are considered, in whose markets non-tobacco nicotine bags have been legally in circulation since 2019.

It should be noted that at the end of 2019, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Uzbekistan clarified that non-tobacco nicotine bags are a substitute for tobacco products and are subject to the same principles of regulation in terms of restrictions on retail trade and advertising as tobacco products. Based on this clarification, in December 2019, the State Antimonopoly Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan issued an order to manufacturers and importers of non-tobacco nicotine snus to stop any advertising support for these products. The order was fulfilled by market participants.

Among retail and service enterprises in all regions of the Republic, explanatory work has already been carried out and continues to be carried out on the inadmissibility of selling such products to persons under the age of 20.