Three world tobacco companies have officially stated their interest in the piecemeal sale of Bulgaria's tobacco monopoly. Phillip Morris, British-American Tobacco and Gallagher have sent letters of interest in Bulgartabac to the government in Sofia, Agriculture Minister Mehmed Dikme told the Bulgarian National Radio. According to him, there is a possibility for one or two of Bulgartabac's subsidiaries to be traded till end-2003. The leader of the country's influential ethnic Turkish party, Ahmed Dogan, forecasted that light would be cast "very soon" on prospective buyers and the timetable of the sale. However, Dikme warned against hasty privatization. At the beginning of October, the government Okayed the new strategy for the privatization of Bulgartabac, which envisages the piecemeal sale of the cigarette production companies and tobacco processing subsidiaries. This move followed the failed bulk deal to sell the tobacco monopoly to a Deutsche Bank-led consortium for EUR 110 M. Bulgartabac includes twelve processing factories and nine cigarette factories. It also runs five cigarette factories in Russia and one each in Ukraine, Romania and Yugoslavia.