The budgets of the countries of the region are constantly increasing thanks to the stable and predictable growth of excise revenue, representatives of the tobacco company Japan Tobacco International indicated today.
“A good example is Serbia, which regularly adopts five-year excise calendars since 2012 and which from 2012 to 2022 recorded an increase in the budget of as much as 57 percent, i.e. 43.6 billion dinars,” the director of corporate affairs and communications at JTI for Western Balkans Goran Pekez said.
He pointed out In Bečići at the Summit of Ministers of Finance, Governors and Directors of Tax Administrations of the countries of the region that in most countries of the Western Balkans there is a practice of adopting excise calendars and this, in combination with the determined fight against the smuggling of tobacco and tobacco products, is the reason for stable, but also increased budget revenues to the budget.
“Thanks to the good decision of the Government of Montenegro to close the Port of Bar, revenues in the budget of Montenegro increased by 16 million euros, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina they increased by as much as 56 million euros. This was a smart move that had multiple benefits for the entire region, but also for the markets of the European Union, considering that it is estimated that around 20 percent of the illegal market in the EU was supplied from the Port of Bar,” said Pekez.
He assessed that the closure of Bar Port, as well as the “Stop Smuggling” campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina, are the best examples of the fight against the illegal trade in tobacco and tobacco products.
JTI, together with the Administration for Indirect Taxation and the Tobacco Industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is organizing the “Stop Smuggling” campaign for the third year in a row with the aim of raising awareness of the dangers of illegal trade for the state, but also for consumers, since smuggled products do not pass quality control.
The value of seized goods in the previous three years is about 5.2 million euros, of which about 10 percent is tobacco and tobacco products. Also, for more than ten years, JTI has been organizing trainings for representatives of customs and ministries of internal affairs from all countries of the region.
In Serbia, JTI provides support for the improvement of inspection supervision capacity, and contributes to the fight against illegal trade through donations in the form of drones and trained dogs, as well as through the “Satellite” project.
The goal of the “Satellite” project Is satellite imaging and identification of plots of land where tobacco is grown illegally, and then its destruction in order to prevent it from ending up on the market. In 2022 alone, illegal tobacco plantations with a total area of about seven hectares were destroyed, from which about 14 tons of dried tobacco or 18.7 million cigarettes would have been produced.
By destroying these illegal tobacco plantations, damage to the republic’s budget in the amount of 1.75 million euros was prevented – if cigarettes were made from that amount of tobacco and sold on the black market. At the same time, illegal tobacco plantations were reduced by 91.6 percent compared to 2021.
During the last seven years, a total of about 800 tons of tobacco was destroyed and damage to the Serbian budget was prevented, on average, by 390 million euros annually.
In the region of the Western Balkans, the tobacco industry accounts for up to 10 percent of the total budget revenues, has 18 open factories and indirectly and directly employs around 45,000 people. Only the JTI company contributed 850 million euros to the budgets of these countries in this region during 2022.
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