China's State Tobacco Monopoly Administration announced here on Wednesday that it seized 7.3 billion fake cigarettes in 2005 and handled 347,000 related cases.

Xing Wanli, a spokesman for the administration, told a press conference here that 5,336 people were detained for crimes related to forging cigarettes, with 1,697 people having been sentenced.

The spokesman also said the tobacco industry produced 1.94 trillion cigarettes last year, up 3.7 percent year on year, and achieved 240 billion yuan (29.78 billion U.S. dollars) in taxes and profits, up 14 percent from the previous year, or 30 billion yuan (3.7 billion dollars) more than in 2004.

In 2005, the country's tobacco growing area grew by 107,000 hectares to reach 1.1 million hectares, Xing said.

China has about 300 million smokers.

Source: Xinhua