Health experts greeted such details with lukewarm enthusiasm
A Shanghai Tobacco spokesperson told the newspaper: As the tobacco market is slowly opening up in China and overseas brands are competing to enter, the Shanghai Tobacco Group is accelerating its effort to build up an international brand. The spokesman added: We are taking the initiative to attack overseas markets through working with a large international company. Chunghwa XO will be introduced simultaneously in 17 DFS outlets, including Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, New Zealand, and Hong Kong during a first quarter roll-out
The findings, which subsequently were widely reported by regional media, were eye-opening, if not to say mindboggling
in fact, it is now the fifth-biggest tobacco company in the world, after the Chinese government tobacco monopoly, the British-American Tobacco Company, the Soviet government monopoly, and the Japanese government monopoly