Joe Duggan (Reporter)
SPAIN’S last remaining cigarette factory is set to be stubbed out.
The closure of the Altadis tobacco factory in Logrono will result in the loss of 471 jobs.
The factory is due to close its doors on June 30.
Altadis, which is owned by British-based Imperial Tobacco, has seen profits slump by 45% over the past five years.
Measures such as smoking bans and plain packaging have helped cut the number of smokers.
More than 6,000 workers in tobacco factories have lost their jobs since 1999 as Altadis closed 12 of its factories.
Altadis still has a cigar factory in northern Cantabria.
Good riddance.
An interesting historical footnote that Britain, whose western maritime trade routes were founded on the rum trade, and eastern commercial empire was anchored with opium, now makes so much overseas income from tobacco — a legal drug, said to be more addictive than heroin.