The war has jeopardized the tobacco market in Ukraine: manufacturers offer solutions

The tobacco industry is one of the largest taxpayers, but because of hostilities and new legislation will not be able to work, RBC-Ukraine writes. "If Ukraine loses tobacco production, it will lose its currency revenue (about 50% of Ukrainian production is now exported) and one of the largest taxpayers. In recent years, the tobacco industry has generated almost 7% of all tax revenues," it reads articles.

The publication explains that the problem arose with the implementation of the Law "On Amendments to Certain Laws of Ukraine on the Public Health of Tobacco" No. 1978-IX, adopted in December 2021. Among the requirements: from January 2024 to increase the area of ​​warnings on packs to 65% of the size of the package, and the shape of each pack should be a rectangular parallelepiped.

At the time of the adoption of the law, the tobacco industry fully agreed with it, but after February 24, 2022 it became clear that it was impossible to execute the law in the part of the change of packaging. As it is noted, manufacturers of tobacco products are deprived of the opportunity to re -equipment their lines.

In Ukrtyunun, they explained that the manufacturer who installs and adjusts the equipment is not ready to send specialists to the country in the territory of which hostilities are being conducted. "Ukrtutyun" represents the interests of 4 international companies: "Philip Morris Ukraine", "Tobacco company B. A. t-Pryluky", "Jay Those International Company Ukraine", "Tobaca Ukraine". Their factories are located, in particular, in Chernihiv, Poltava regions, Kharkiv and Kiev.

They ordered the packaging at the AMKOR company, whose factory is located in Dergachi, Kharkiv region, and is now closed. Tobacco companies began to buy packaging from various suppliers in Europe, which also had to change their equipment urgently. "But because of the increased load, businesses in the EU do not always have time to print what we ordered," - said a specialist in the production of one of the tobacco companies.

In addition, changing the shape of the pack requires replacement of line elements in factories in Ukraine. "Equipment manufacturers do not want to risk their specialists and no Ukrainian law will force them to do them," the specialist explained. "None of the manufacturers, including tobacco companies, have a technological opportunity to re -equipment production . . .