Machine export ban sought

China is to be asked to stop the export of cigarette-making machines to the Philippines, according to a story in The Manila Bulletin quoting the Philippines Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero.
The Commissioner said on Saturday that the Customs Bureau would ask its counterpart in China to stop such exports in a bid to crack down on the manufacture of fake cigarettes in the Philippines.
He said in a statement that the Bureau was trying to end ‘the smuggling of cigarette-making machines that are used in the manufacture of fake tobacco products’.
The Bureau, he added, was expected to inform its counterpart in China about ‘the illicit scheme’.
In addition, the Commissioner said the Bureau would ask Chinese officials not to allow the export of cigarette-making machines without ‘proper and complete documentation’.
During a raid by Customs agents in August, a group of Chinese nationals were said to have been caught red-handed while manufacturing fake cigarettes in a warehouse equipped with tobacco-making machines in Gapan City, Nueva Ecija. Presumably the machines were of Chinese origin.
Seventeen Chinese nationals were said to have been rounded up during the raid.
Fake cigarettes carrying a number of brand names, six cigarette-making machines, cigarette raw materials, and fake Bureau of Internal Revenue tax stamps were found inside the warehouse.