LAHORE: A new study has revealed that the government’s efforts to curb illegal trade of cigarettes have proved unsuccessful.
The recent Nielsen (a global market research firm) study, titled ‘The Challenge of Illicit Trade in Cigarettes: Impact and Solutions for Pakistan’ has said that the government’s awareness campaigns and legislation to curtail the illicit trade in cigarettes have proved a futile exercise as more than 1 billion smuggled cigarettes are annually added to the local market, making it a lucrative destination for smugglers.
The study said that the grave situation of illicit tobacco trade in Pakistan by quoting that over the last six years, the illicit trade has grown by 43.5% and the tax-paid cigarette volume has declined by 11%.
This study also claims that the price gap between tax-paid and tax-evaded brands is fuelling this business in Pakistan. The prices of legal brands have doubled in the last four years and people in turn are switching to cheap illicit cigarettes. In 2014 alone, 17.3 billion sticks of local tax evaded brands were consumed.
