Cigarette production in Indonesia is predicted to reach 226.9 billion sticks in 2007, against the estimated 223 billion sticks last year, an official said Friday.

The number of small cigarette factories are expected to increase while several large producers have increased their production capacity, said Imam Haryono, director of tobacco industry with the ministry of Industry.

"The utilization of cigarette production capacity remains below 50 percent, as Indonesian cigarette factories have a combined capacity of 500 billion sticks a year," he was quoted by leading news website Detikcom as saying.

The world's fifth largest cigarette consumer has six major producers, including PT Gudang Garam (57.2 billion sticks a year), PT HM Sampoerna, now owned by U.S.-based Philip Morris (45.7 billion), Djarum (35.9 billion), Philip Morris (7.5 billion), Norojono (6.5 billion) and PT British-American Tobacco (4.4 billion).

Source: Xinhua