SEOUL-- KT&G Corp., South Korea's dominant tobacco company, said Thursday its second-quarter net profit jumped 34 percent from a year earlier helped by a weak won.

Net profit for the three months ended in June rose to 330.1 billion won (US$250 million) from 246.4 billion won during the same period of last year, the company said in a statement.

The won's weakness against the dollar buoyed the quarterly bottomline, a company spokesman said.

The dollar rose to an average of 1,259.57 won in the second quarter from 1,121.23 won a year ago, according to the Bank of Korea.

Operating profit climbed 1 percent to 327.6 billion won in the second quarter from 324.3 billion won a year ago. Sales were up 11 percent to 1.418 trillion won from 1.278 trillion won during the same period.

Increased overseas sales in emerging markets, such as Latin America and Indonesia, pushed up sales in the June quarter, the statement said.

From January to June, net income rose 14 percent to 593 billion won from 519 billion won during the same period last year.

KT&G has four tobacco manufacturing plants, one each in South Korea, Russia, Turkey and Indonesia, whose combined capacity is 13.6 billion cigarettes a year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency