The world’s second largest tobacco group today said it sold fewer cigarettes as smokers cut back their consumption in the economic downturn.

Campaigners today hailed British American Tobacco’s withdrawal from Burma, and urged other multinationals to follow suit to protest at the military junta’s alleged human rights abuses.

British American Tobacco said today that it is to sell its holding in a Burma cigarette manufacturer, a move long sought by critics of the company’s involvement in the military-rule country.