The world's third largest cigarette producer Japan Tobacco Inc. will close down its factory in Hainburg, Austria, and will transfer the production to Romania and Poland, news service romania-insider.com has reported, without providing a source of information.

The move should materialize by the end of this year, when 320 Austrian employees in the factory and in JTI's administrative department in Vienna will be affected, it added. The Hainburg factory has a capacity of 10bn cigarettes a year and produces mainly Benson&Hedges and Memphis cigarettes.

JTI - controlling 11% of the global cigarettes market - will have 28 factories worldwide after the transfer of production.