Within a Regie’s General Manager and President Mr. Nassif Seklaoui’s initiative the town of Sediqin- Tyr, received a donation from British American Tobacco Company in order to build concrete passageways that would help farmers to reach their fields during winter, as well as to prevent rain water from overflowing in the fields; a phenomenon that could destroy crops.
In Mr. Seklaoui’s office, Mrs. Jihan Al Morr; the Director of the company’s Office in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Yemen, offered the donation in the presence of the company’s Director of Legal Affairs in the ME Region Mr. Imad Hadara and Leaf Tobacco Consultant Mr. Georges Debel. Sediqin was represented by its municipal chief Mr. Ali Zeino Balhas. In addition, the meeting was attended by the Regie’s Leaf Tobacco Manager Mr. Abdel Mawla El Mawla and the Agriculture Manager Mr. Jaafar El Husseini.
The attendees thanked Seklaoui for his initiative and underlined “his continuous actions that reach each and every area, aiming to develop local communities.
achievements”, expressing his determination to “continue the path of developing Regie although it has a lot of challenges especially in light of the current political and security situation.”
Seklaoui added: “Despite all the odds we aimed at reaching the highest ranks of leadership, and here we are today, putting forth all our efforts and working together hand in hand to achieve the best accomplishments.”
“We sketched a roadmap for our ambition, which was unachievable in the eyes of those who doubted the capabilities of state sectors, but today we cross a long way of this road, passing stages that were up until yesterday illusions.”
In this regard, Eng. Seklaoui said: “Our ambitions are not achieved in slogans and words, but in hard work, visions and proper planning.”
Pointing out that Regie has obtained the international quality certificate, upgraded its factories, developed its teams, and has also taken the lead in the local tobacco industry, Eng. Seklaoui expressed his pride that “Regie was able to position itself on the regional tobacco map, and has become a Middle Eastern center for the manufacture of tobacco without any competitor, and has also become a distinctive example for the Lebanese industry and all national public utilities.”
He also mentioned that “Regie achieved a great progress in 2017 at the level of manufacturing and quality and also in terms of mechanization and developing the competencies of its technical teams.”
“We renovated our factories and brought the latest tobacco technologies. We also doubled the production lines and gained high competitiveness and also garnered the trust of local and international parties and eventually attracted pioneer international companies such as Phillip Morris and Imperial Tobacco that signed with us agreements to produce their trademarks after starting to manufacture the products of the German Von Eicken.”
In this context, Eng. Seklaoui noted that these agreements are nothing but the start, announcing that Regie will sign in the near future two agreements with Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco.
He also stated that this rich balance is an indicator of the trust that Regie and its teams were altogether able to prove that they are worthy of.
“Regie, the public sector and Lebanon deserve this trust!”
He also pointed out that Regie is manufacturing 12 global brands along with the 9 local tobacco brands, adding that its production is expected to increase after signing these two agreements by25% to reach 650 million cigarettes per months.
“Increasing the production of international brands will support our efforts aimed at putting an end to tobacco smuggling.”
In this regard, he added: “We will translate all the efforts aimed at combatting smuggling through a conference that will be held in March in the presence of participants from the public and private sector in order to come up with solutions and mechanisms that could be adopted to support this sector at the national level and combat these practices that are causing major financial losses and depriving the state and the treasury from revenues worth millions of dollars each year.”
“For this purpose, we issued the Beirut Declaration which unifies the policies of national institutions regarding the future of this sector in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia.”
He also pointed out that the revenues of this sector increased from 212 million dollars in 2007, to 431 million dollars in 2016, and are expected to reach 441 million dollars in 2017.
Eng. Seklaoui added: “Our developmental compass is the people in deprived areas where Regie implemented this year an unprecedented number of projects in tobacco-planting areas,” stating that “the number of project reached 50 and the total number of projects implemented in South Lebanon, the North and Bekaa reached 144.”
Talking about these projects, Eng. Seklaoui mentioned that they are never measured by their number or geographical scope but by the men, women, and children whose lives were improved and whose educational levels were enhanced.
He also stressed that Regie will never give up on its duties and responsibilities toward the communities and the people of Lebanon.
“Without the trust of the state, especially that granted to us from House Speaker Nabih Berri, and the Ministry of Finance and Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, we wouldn’t have been able to face all these challenges. Without the trust of all those who work with us, we wouldn’t have been able to assume our responsibilities. Without trusting our teams and their roles and responsibilities toward the community, economy and nation we wouldn’t have been standing here today!”
Eng. Seklaoui concluded by saying: “Our slogan has never been just ink on paper, it has always been based on trust.”