A recent report published by Nielsen Pakistan and titled "The challenge of illicit trade in cigarettes: Impact and solutions for Pakistan" was launched at a seminar on "illicit trade in Pakistan" held recently in Lahore. Speaking at the event, the Nielsen representative shared the findings of the report with a wide range of participants including high raking officials from Federal Board of Revenue, Police, Punjab Government as well as industry and civil society representatives.
According to the report nearly one out of every four cigarettes in Pakistan is illegal. The share of the illegal cigarettes in the total market is estimated to be 23.7 percent which means that around 19.5 billion sticks sold per annum are illegal. The report discloses that the illicit cigarette sector had witnessed a growth of 43.5 percent over the last six years and all that had been at the expense of the tax compliant industry. This phenomenal growth has also caused a huge dent in the national exchequer in the form of loss of duties and taxes. The report estimates this loss to be above Rs 24 billion per annum.
The Nielsen representative explained that out of the 19.5 billion illicit cigarette sticks, around 17.3 billion are those of local tax evaded cigarettes, while remaining are of smuggled cigarettes. The main causes of the high growth of the illicit cigarette trade were cited to be tax led price differential, lax enforcement, porous borders and better margins for retailers.
Collector Customs (Preventive), Mukarram Jah also spoke at the occasion and discussed the issues that the Government faces in curbing this Problem. According to him a three tiered focused and joint strategy of all stakeholder needs to be implemented starting with awareness, followed by capacity building and ending with enforcement.-PR
Comments
Comments are closed.