Baku, Azerbaijan, May 30
Trend:
Iran’s legal cigarette became zero in the first two months of the current fiscal year, started March 2018, Ali Asghar Ramzi, head of Iran’s Center for Tobacco Planning and Supervision, said.
Iran imported 503 million cigarettes during the same period of the last fiscal year, Ramzi said, the official website of Iran’s Industry Ministry reported May 30.
He further said that the volume of hookah tobacco imports also has decreased by 67 percent to 749 tons in the same span of time.
He added that the huge fall is a result of the Iranian administration plan to domestically produce foreign cigarette brands in order to cut down their imports.
Iran’s cigarette import was 13.6 billion in the fiscal year to March 2015, which increased to 16.4 billion in the next fiscal year, which ended March 2016, Ramzi said.
The figure decreased to 3.27 billion cigarettes during the last fiscal year after launching new production units and developing the production capacity of existing cigarette factories, Ramzi said.
He further said that Iran plans to increase the domestic cigarette production to 55 billion during the current fiscal year (to end March 2019).
Iran’s cigarette output stood at 49.3 billion in last fiscal year, 69 percent more year-on-year, the official said.
About 55 billion cigarettes are smoked in Iran annually.
In recent months, Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the administration increased domestic output of cigarettes, decreasing the dependency on imports. Meanwhile, over 80 percent of the tobacco used in Iran’s cigarette factories is supplied through imports.