Abstract: Provided are methods for increasing the production of protein in a plant cell by transforming plastids of plant cells with a construct comprising a promoter functional in a plant plastid, a ribosome binding site, DNA sequence of interest and a transcription termination region, and growing plant cells comprising the transformed plastids under conditions wherein the DNA encoding sequence is transcribed in the plastid. Also provided are methods for increasing protein production by fusing a coding sequence to a gene of interest to a secondary protein for cleavage or targetting of the protein of interest within the plastid, whereby high levels of expression of protein is achieved.