BUCHAREST (Romania), April 17 (SeeNews) – The share of the black market of cigarettes in Romania shrank to 15.2% in March, from 17.3% in January, Romanian company Novel Research said on Wednesday.
As much as 16.5% of all cigarettes smuggled into Romania orginated from the country's northeastern neighbour Moldova, down 2.5 percentage points compared to the last study made in January, Novel Research said in a press release.
Compared to January, the percentage of illicit cigarettes smuggled from Ukraine fell by 1.7 percentage points to 11.2% in March, while the share of contraband cigarettes from Serbia edged up 0.2 percentage points to 0.7%.
The so-called "cheap whites" - foreign-sounding brand names made solely for the black market - accounted for 55.1% of all smuggled cigarettes.
Smuggled cigarettes had a 24.3% market share in Romania's southwestern region. The most significant decrease in the illicit trade in cigarettes was registered in the western region, by 6.8 percentage points to 1.8%.
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.
Tobacco industry is the second biggest contributor to Romania's state budget, after the oil industry.