China tobacco industry pays 753b yuan in taxes in '11

BEIJING - China's tobacco industry paid 752.96 billion yuan ($119 billion) in taxes in 2011, up 22.5 percent year-on-year, an official said Wednesday.

Also, the industry handed over 600.12 billion yuan in profits to the government last year, representing a 22.8-percent rise from one year earlier, Jiang Chengkang, head of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, said at a national work conference.

Jiang said the tobacco industry is turning greener. Energy consumption per 10,000 yuan of value-added fell 19.7 percent year-on-year to 29.4 kg of standard coal in 2011.

The industry's chemical oxygen demand (COD) and sulfur dioxide emissions decreased 11.7 percent and 29.8 percent, respectively, to 2,751 tons and 5,688 tons, Jiang said.