China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration announced in
Beijing Thursday that it had seized 9.07 billion counterfeit brand
cigarettes in 2006.
Law enforcement agencies arrested 6,334 people in
connection with falsely branded cigarettes with 2,313 prosecuted, said
administration spokesperson Zhang Xiulian.
Zhang said the tobacco
industry produced more than two trillion cigarettes last year and reported more
than 290 billion yuan (37 billion U.S. dollars) in pre-tax profits, a
year-on-year increase of 20 percent.
He said China's tobacco industry
was getting stronger through mergers and acquisitions. At the end of 2006, China
had 31 tobacco production companies, compared with 44 at the end of
2005.
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