The multinational tobacco giant British American Tobacco (BAT) said on Thursday it plans to hire 100 experts in Croatia to become part of a global team tasked with developing technologically innovative tobacco products.

“This is an exciting time for all of us at BAT. We are giving everyone interested an opportunity to take part in the industry’s transformation, and to start a career in a stimulating environment that we nurture at BAT,” said BAT’s General Manager for Adria Region, Antal Bekefi.

BAT said that Croatia will be one of the first batch of countries in which BAT will launch glo, its heat-not-burn tobacco product, which is currently sold in Japan, Switzerland, South Korea, Canada, Italy and Romania. Since 2012, BAT has invested more than $2.5 billion in developing the new generation of tobacco products.

The company said it will continue to invest and hire in Croatia, notably in factory in Kanfanar in northwest Croatia, which produced 10 billion cigarettes last year, and has plans to increase production to 12.5 billion this year, which would be a 50 percent increase of the facility’s output from when BAT acquired the local Tvornica Duhana Rovinj (TDR) in mid-2015.

Since it acquired the company, BAT will have invested €45 million by the end of this year in the Kanfanar factory. Today Croatian operations of BAT’s Adria region employs more than 1,700 workers.

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