From: Financial Tribune
Contraband cigarettes account for 35-40% of the domestic market, a former CEO of Iranian Tobacco Company said. Mohammad Hossein Barkhordar was also quoted as saying by ISNA that close to 8.5 billion sticks of cigarettes were smuggled into the country in the last Iranian year (March 2015-16), indicating a 29% decline compared to the previous year, according to Iran’s Headquarters to Combat Smuggling of Commodities and Foreign Exchange. Some 29 billion cigarettes were also produced inside the country during the same period, while imports stood at 16.4 billion. In the capital city Tehran, cigarettes and tobacco topped the list of confiscated smuggled goods during the first two months of the current Iranian year (started March 20), according to Tehran’s Industries, Mining and Trade Organization.
