The illegal trade in tobacco products is expected to become riskier with the advent of digital codes on licit products, according to a Russian News Agency (TASS) story.
The story said that a pilot project had started in January, and that as part of that pilot the first marked packs of cigarettes were expected to roll off the production line ‘in the near future’.
According to the plans, by 2019 all tobacco products will bear a digital code that carries data about the manufacturer and about the entire logistics chain from the assembly line to points of sale.
Unnamed experts interviewed by TASS said they believed the retail prices of cigarettes would not rise to pay for the tracking system.
They said too that the first indication of the success or otherwise of the system would become known in June, after the first phase of the pilot project.
Meanwhile, the vice president of corporate affairs at Philip Morris International, Russia, Sergey Slipchenko, was quoted as saying that, taking into account the expected significant decline in the turnover of illicit products when marking was implemented, the costs of the system would be fully justified.
And according to the senior manager of Japan Tobacco International, Russia, Sergey Golovko, digital marking could become an important tool in the fight against illicit tobacco products. “Along with the stabilization of excise rates within the Eurasian Economic Union, the introduction of mandatory digital marking will help create conditions under which manufacturing and selling illegal products will become a lot riskier,” he said.
Pilot tracking system
