Mass falsification.

Underground production of cigarettes was uncovered in the Poltava region: “The investigation established the organizer of the production and sale of tobacco products without excise tax stamps. He carried out illegal activities on the territory of the garage cooperative. With the help of special equipment, the person involved has established a full cycle of production of tobacco products. I sold finished products on the Internet and in retail outlets exclusively for cash..

Unfortunately, this is already a common story: such messages, for example, to me and, I think, to many other journalists, are received very often - sometimes even daily. The Internet as a whole is full of information about abuses in the tobacco market.. Another thing is surprising - it turns out that in our time it is so easy to organize large-scale production, providing it with the necessary cigarette machines, tobacco raw materials (up to flavors), and even packaging equipment.

At the same time, excise stamps can not be bought from the state at all.. Here the logic is as follows: why pay taxes to the state (keep in mind that 75-80% of the price of cigarettes are exactly those taxes), if you can quickly sell (for cash) popular products at a price even lower than these taxes. And most importantly, everything received is pure gesheft, which you don’t have to share with anyone.. Well, almost no one.

Therefore, those who want to earn extra money in this way, despite all the efforts of the security forces, are not getting smaller.. Underground workshops appear like mushrooms after rain. Even imprisonment for a term of three to five years with confiscation and destruction of illegally produced or acquired goods, tools of production, raw materials for their manufacture, etc.. does not strongly constrain the shadow industry.

Therefore, the \? After all, tobacco products without any excise stamps are already openly and freely sold on the streets of Ukrainian cities.. And 62% of the illegal market is made up of cigarettes without excise stamps, labeled for sale in Duty free stores or for export..

Disoriented shopper.

It comes to the point of absurdity - in order to purchase a legal pack of cigarettes, you have to spend extra time and a lot of money. At the same time, dealers from trade earn not only on fakes, but also on “white” goods..

Everything is very simple - in the face of a significant amount of counterfeit, even in official trade establishments, the average buyer is disoriented. He has repeatedly encountered fakes, when the quality of the purchased did not match the expected usual taste, and begins to look for a real product..

And here the same dealers-realizers come to the rescue. This time they already offer a completely legal product, but its price is really surprising. So, according to the assurances of smokers, in the market in Kyiv for a pack of real American red Marlboro they ask for 750 UAH..

That is, the huge “shadow” itself created the conditions for making money on both “gray” and “white” goods.. This was the real price of cheap counterfeit products, which at one time (when the shadow was just gaining momentum) was chosen by the mass consumer.

First of all, brands of international tobacco companies are counterfeited.. So, according to the results of the February report of the company "

The robbed state budget.

In vain, legal manufacturers rejoiced at the decrease in the shadow segment according to the results of research by Kantar, carried out in November 2022. Then the share of the illegal market really decreased from 21.9% (August research) to 17.8%. But already in February 2023 (this is just published data), it became clear that the shadow had grown to 20.2%, that is, the average annual volume of the illegal cigarette market in Ukraine is growing further.. In 2022, it reached 19.9%.

And even if the real share is 20.2% (which is about 7.5 billion pieces. cigarettes) will remain stable until the end of the year, the state budget-2023 will receive less UAH 22 billion against last year’s 19.1 billion. Which, by the way, corresponds to 15 thousand. annual salaries of military personnel.

The growth rate of the " The negative trend began in 2017. Then in a year the volume of the "

But who then could be frightened by growth from 1.1 to 2.3%? Who could have foreseen that in just five or six years the share of the \?

What causes growth? According to the latest study by Kantar Ukraine, it is precisely due to fakes: their share in illegal products increased from 5.2% to 7.9% against the report for November 2022. That is, the falsifiers took about UAH 3 billion more from the state budget and put them in their own pockets..

At the same time, the share of products labeled Duty free or intended for export remains significant, although it has slightly decreased to 10.8%. At the same time, the share of smuggling (1.5%) has little effect on the situation.

Among the regions of the largest distribution of illegal products, the leaders are Dnepropetrovsk (14%), Kharkiv (9%), Odessa (9%), Lviv (9%), Kirovohrad (8%), Chernivtsi (7%), Khmelnytsky (6%). Together they account for 68% of the total distribution of illegal products.

official sales.

What is alarming? In addition to the high growth rates of the share of fakes and, at the same time, the total volume of shadow products, it is striking that it is official trade, and not, as before, spontaneous street vendors or markets, that forms the main channels for the sale of illegal products.. If in the previous report of " At the same time, the share that falls on stores increased by as much as 5% (only in two months), reaching 33%.

That is, official trade (which, it would seem, should be absolutely controlled by the state) has actually assumed the function of distributing counterfeit goods.. And this very well explains the problems of smokers, for whom it has become very difficult to buy real cigarettes from legal manufacturers..

Is it really true that in order to be guaranteed to acquire a real brand, you will have to go to the market?

***.

According to ZN.

UA, now they plan to solve the problems of the tobacco market by introducing restrictions at the legislative level for the sale of Duty free products: from the abolition of tax benefits to the complete closure of Duty free stores at automobile checkpoints. However, as we have already mentioned, Duty free labeled tobacco products account for only 10.8% of the market.. So far, no one offers effective solutions to combat the rest of the " Although today it would be possible to intensify this fight by more active performance by the National Police and the BEB of their duties.