BUCHAREST (Romania), August 24 (SeeNews) – The share of the cigarette black market in Romania expanded to 16% in July from 15.1% in May, with the bulk of contraband cigarettes coming from the country's northeastern neighbour Moldova, local research company Novel said on Thursday.
As much as 25.2% of all smuggled cigarettes originated in Moldova, Novel Research head Marian Marcu said in a press release. The inflow of illicit cigarettes from Ukraine dropped 7.7 percentage points to 8.5% in July compared to May, while contraband from Serbia stayed flat at 0.6%, he added.
The so-called "cheap whites" - foreign-sounding brand names made solely for the black market - accounted for 59.7% of all smuggled cigarettes.
Illegal cigarettes had a 38.4% market share in Romania's northeastern region, Marcu said. In the southern and southwestern regions their share has dropped to 24.5% and 22%, respectively.
After a steady decline for 11 months, the black cigarette market is expanding again, Gilda Lazar, corporate affairs and communications director JTI Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria said in the same press release.
"Even if we are talking about a slight increase of less than 1 percentage point, the period during which it is manifested is likely to worry, because July is usually a month with low levels," Lazar added.
The JTI official also said that given the situation, tobacco manufacturers will resume some joint programmes they had developed over the years with the country's fiscal agency, ANAF, and the customs office. Thus, starting August 28, a new stage of training for canine teams will begin, consisting in replacement of retired dogs and training of new ones, as well as maintenance and improvement of control techniques for existing teams.
Cigarette manufacturers believe that, in order to reduce smuggling, several legislative changes they have long been pressing for are needed. Namely, producers call for stricter controls at the border crossings with Hungary and Bulgaria, as well as at markets, fairs and metro stations.
The tobacco industry is the second biggest contributor to Romania's budget, after the oil industry, having generated revenues of 3 billion euro ($3.5 billion) in 2015, or 2% of the country's GDP and 12.5% of all budget revenues.
($=0.8491 euro)
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