UNMIK ON AIR
8 July 2003
PAY IF YOU
WANT TO COUGH
(Luan
Qorraj)
Valbon Haliti: It’s much worse, the customs
went up, the cigarettes are more expensive it’s bad, It has killed us, the
tobacco is more expensive, the people aren’t buying, they fight around the
price. Memphis is more expensive, Marlboro, Ronhill – all of them.
Hello and welcome to UNMIK
on Air with Martin Redi and Hysni Recica
Valbon is one of many cigarette vendors making their living
through selling cigarettes in the Prishtina streets.
The latest decision to increase the excise being paid by
tobacco importers – has caused a slight increase in the price of cigarettes.
Basically if you are buying a carton of cigarettes you will
pay, depending on the brand, an average of 1 more Euro per carton, that is 10
more cents per package, a fact which has left a lot, out of many, kosovan
smokers unhappy.
True, says Fetah Recica, from the chamber of commerce,
especially if we keep in mind the fact that the increase is being paid by the
consumer, since the profits of the importers and the traders remains the same.
Still, according to Fetah, the consumption will reduce during the first
days.
Fetah Recica: The increase in prices will
reduce the trade, during this particular moment; after a while it will
stabilize and the consumption will come back to it’s normal level, like it was
before; which means that the raise in the excise, or the price, falls on the
back of the consumer- and it is damaging to the consumer, not the trader, not
the producer.
A fact confirmed by
Blerim, another cigarette salesman in Prishtina. He says his sales have reduced
notoriously since the price of cigarette increased.
Blerim: -I used to sell almost a hundred
packs today I sell between 30 and 50 a day.
-Which
ones do you sell more the cheep ones or the expensive ones
-The cheap ones, Albanians do not have money, the cigarettes got more expensive
But, the purpose of excise
isn’t to hurt the consumers, it is actually aimed at increasing the kosovan
budget -over 75 percent of which is coming from Customs. Mr. Recica from the
Chamber of Commerce supports the idea of the excise and says that, in general,
it will make an overall difference.
Fetah Recica: I think that the excise has
positive effects on the general economy of a place. In this case Kosovo, since,
in a way, it defends Kosovan products. Up to now, we know that a large part of
the tobacco comes in without paying excise, or maybe even customs itself,
causing unfair competition within the Kosovan market. Now in way, it brings it back to the channels of a normal economy.
But the problem is not
within legal imports, says Ibrahim Rexhepi, the economy editor at Koha Ditore
daily, it is with the illegal one. The largest loss on the Kosovar budget comes
from illegal import of fuel and cigarettes. And, adds Mr. Rexhepi, it is still
unclear where, half of the cigarettes, that do get legally imported, end up
Ibrahim Rexhepi: the problem is how much did
the budget gain from cigarettes up to now. Did we have more legal import or
more smuggling? And all the indicators are showing that the biggest amount of
cigarettes went through illegal channels, which means that the budget was
loosing anyway. Earlier it was said that the import was 500 tons per month,
while the consumption is around half, or a bit more, of that amount. Which
means that the rest went into smuggling
Still, in a Kosovo, which
has basic survival problems, a raise in the price of cigarettes shouldn’t be as
dramatic an event as it is being made to be. At the end of the day cigarettes
are luxury products and, the Balkans in General do have some of the cheapest
cigarettes in the world.
On a brighter note- it
seems that customs will finally put a lid on cigarette smuggling by using
stamps on all legally imported packs of cigarettes, allowing this way to follow
their track if they do not end up where they were intentionally set to.
With this we close today’s
edition of UNMIK on Air thanks for listening and stay tuned for more.