Major producer of tobacco products, British American Tobacco (BAT) announced they would continue investing in their factory in Kanfanar in western Croatia with 400 million kuna (€53 million) earmarked for developing "new categories of tobacco products," the company said on Friday.

Director-general of the company’s regional subsidiary, BAT Adria, Zvonko Kolobara, said that the new investment is building on last year’s 200 million kuna (€27 million) investment for new production lines intended to make heated tobacco products. Kolobara said that this latest round of investment would include new jobs, but did not specify how many new workers might be employed.

Director of BAT South Europe, Roberta Palazzetti, said that the total investment of 600 million kuna in new production lines had additionally strengthened Croatia’s position on BAT’s global map, with the Kanfanar factory established as one of the few in the world to produce heated tobacco products, a new product category which “significantly reduce health risks for adult smokers.”

BAT had acquired the cigarette factory in Kanfanar in Istria in 2015 when the company bought Croatia’s major tobacco producer Tvornica Duhana Rovinj (TDR). In the coming years BAT plans to increase the production of heated tobacco products in Croatia in light of what they say is increasing demand.

BAT said that since the 2015 acquisition it had invested nearly 1.1 billion kuna (€135 million) in their operations in Croatia, and has since continued to increase production output, create jobs, and increase export. The company pays 3.5 billion kuna (€462 million) in taxes and contributions every year, BAT said, and employs 1,500 Croatian workers.

“Every year the company contributes more than 1.4 billion kuna in added value to Croatia’s GDP,” BAT said.

(€1 = 7.57 kuna)