A total of 7,617.3 million cigarettes were sold in free trade in January-September this year, representing 76% of sales in the same period of 2012.

At the same time, a continual growth has been recorded in the sale of cigarillos which tripled since 2011 and grew 30% from the first nine months of last year, the paper said. The sale of rolling tobacco also increased by nearly 30% between 2011 and 2012 and stayed mostly unchanged this year.

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