British American Tobacco, the world's number two cigarette maker, plans to build a cigarette manufacturing plant in South Korea.
The London-based British-U.S. joint venture is the first foreign cigarette maker to invest in South Korea after the government abandoned its decades-old monopoly on tobacco manufacturing last month.
Until last month, cigarette manufacturing in South Korea had been monopolized by the state-run Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corporation.
B-A-T plans to invest 82 million U.S. dollars to build the factory capable of producing four hundred million packs a year by 2003 in Sacheon City on the central south coast.
South Korea's cigarette market totals about five billion packs a year. The country opened its cigarette market in 19-88 and foreign imports had a market share of about 15 percent last year.
According to government statistics, about 30 percent of the nation's 46 million people smoke an average of one pack a day.