TheOttoman Tobacco Company, (Memalik-i Şahane Duhanları Müşterekül Menfaa Reji Şirketi) also known as theRégie Company for its French official nameSociété de la régie co-intéressée des tabacs de l'empire Ottoman, was a parastatal company orRegie formed in the laterOttoman Empire by theOttoman Public Debt Administration, with backing from a consortium of European banks. The company had a monopoly overtobacco production, and its revenue was intended to help overcome the Ottoman state's persistent shortage of income.[1] The Ottoman Tobacco Company constituted the largest foreign investment in the Ottoman Empire, and it attempted to introduce more efficient production methods – against local resistance.[2]
In 1881, thestate monopoly on salt was incorporated into the Régie Company, which passed revenue from salt taxes (tuz resmi) to the Public Debt Commission.[3] As the state (or a parallel state controlled by the government's creditors) now effectively controlled salt production and salt prices, salt smuggling became a problem.[4] In 1884, the Ottoman government instituted a tobacco monopoly and delegated it to a partly foreign company, the “Regie co-intréressée des tabacs de l’Empire ottoman”,[5] which relied on a consortium of European banks and on theImperial Ottoman Bank, also listed in London and Paris. Founded in 1863, the latter[6] brought together French shareholders supplementing initial contributions of British funds in 1856. Both had offices in Paris, Place de la Bourse.
Under theRepublic of Turkey, the Ottoman Tobacco Company was nationalised in 1925 and becameTekel, which was sold toBritish American Tobacco in 2008.
There are successor companies in other Ottoman successor states. To this day, the state-run tobacco monopolies inLebanon andSyria are known as Régie.[7]
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