The black market for cigarettes has grown in September to 18.3 percent from 14.9 pct in July, a study conducted by research company Novel Research reveals.
According to the study, this is the largest increase in the illegal commerce of cigarettes in the past two years and is above the average of the past five years (around 15 pct).
According to the vicepresident of the National Tax Administration Agency, Dorel Fronea, this unwanted increase in the black market imposes the immediate strengthening of operational measures, but also the relaunching of a coordinated strategic approach.
"Unfortunately, this is the result of the disbanding of the National Customs Authority [ANV] in August 2013. It's known that, in the last month of the ANV functioning, July 2013, the level of illegal cigarette trafficking was at 11.8 percent. We had then 15 functional scanners and approximately 100 mobile teams nationally, which were disbanded. Currently, the scanners are not working at full capacity, we do not have mobile teams anymore, and the number of customs workers is insufficient," said Fronea, coordinator of the Customs Authority of Romania.
He says that the authorities have taken measures to strengthen transborder cooperation, following meetings with leaders of customs administrations from the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Germany, but also with the leaders of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM).
"The north-east region continues to be the most affected by the illegal commerce of cigarettes, recording a significant increase in September as compared to July, of 7.2 pp, reaching 42.5 percent. The most important increase of the black market is in the south-east region, namely 8.3 pp, reaching 18.5 percent," said Marian Marcu, director of Novel Research.
In her turn, Ileana Dumitru, director of Legal & External Affairs of BAT Romania, mentioned that the increase by 3 percentage points of contraband, from 14.9 percent to 18.3 percent means an additional annual loss of 130 million euro for the state budget, on top of the 600 million euro already lost each year.
The tobacco sector is the second largest contributor in the state budget of Romania, after the petroleum sector. In 2015, tobacco companies have wired nearly 3 billion euro to the state budget for excise taxes, VAT, other taxes and contributions. The sum represents nearly 2 percent of the GDP, or the equivalent of 12.5 percent of the total budgetary income.
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