From: ANSAmed
ATHENS, OCTOBER 12 – The Greek state loses up to 400 million euros annually in tax revenue from a thriving cigarette smuggling sector in the country, a sum equaling pension payments for civil servants for an entire month, or 860,000 unemployment benefits, Athens News Agency reports.
Nikitas Theofilopoulos, chairman and chief executive of the Papastratos Group – a Greek cigarette manufacturer — said during a news conference on Wednesday that smuggling and consumption of of cigarettes rose to 13.2% in April 2012. He noted that cigarette consumption totaled 26.8 billion cigarettes in 2011, down 8.4% from 2010, or 10.1% of total consumption in the country, five times more compared with a 2.2% figure recorded in 2008. Illicit whites accounted for 45% of illegal cigarettes. Greece recorded the second largest percentage increase in illegal cigarettes in the European Union (3.8 percentage points in 2011). A survey conducted in April 2012 showed that the trend of the illegal cigarette market was expected to surpass 13% this year and noted that combating all illegal activity would boost legal cigarette sales by 15%.
Theofilopoulos said this illegal activity resulted to lower state revenue, more job losses and lost turnover for the industry, unfair competition, undermining of public health policies and funding of criminal activities in the country.
Theofilopoulos stressed it was necessary to draft an integrated policy to combating illegal cigarette trade.
