British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya is set to start the commercial export of semi-processed tobacco to Egypt for manufacturing into cigarettes this month, Capital Business reported. BAT Finance Director of East Africa Lawrence Kimathi told an investor briefing that they will ship about 50 containers of the roughly chopped commonly referred to as cut rag to the North African country every month, in the project in which they have invested 350 million Kenyan shilling. “We are talking about a 70 percent increase in our throughput in our factory and many containers leaving our factory every month which is really huge from a traffic and return point of view,” the director said. Egypt has been touted as one of the few African countries that boasts a low production cost environment, and this will enhance the company's efficiency and competitiveness. The cigarette manufacturer said it expected that the investment — which significantly pushed up its financing costs by up to 177 percent in the first half of the year — to be recouped in about three years.
