cigarette

Cigarette smuggling to Romania has dropped to 12% in May 2011, from 36.2% in 2009, following the efforts of the Customs authority, Prosecutor's office, National Anticorruption Department, cigarette producers and the press, Sorin Blejnar, head of tax authority ANAF, said Wednesday.

The top three cigarette producers on the Romanian market hiked cigarette prices by 0.3 lei (EUR1=RON4.2626) per pack this week.

The excise hike and the higher exchange rate used for computing excise duties as of January 1 would significantly impact cigarette and tobacco products prices, which are expected to grow by 14%, while the prices of the other excisable products would only register a single-digit growth.

The cheapest cigarette pack in Romania will cost 7.1 lei (EUR1=RON4.2618) next year, when excises increase, compared with the current price of RON6.4, and will reach RON12.4 in 2016, said Wednesday Philip Gambaccini, fiscal affairs manager of cigarette producer Philip Morris International.

Romanian border police with the western customs house of Nadlac discovered Monday night about 370,000 packs of contraband cigarettes, hidden in a truck carrying hamburger buns on its way to Germany.