Man arrested on suspicion of smuggling cigarettes in to Southampton Docks

A man has been arrested after allegedly attempting to smuggle more than 350,000 cigarettes into the country through Southampton Docks. 

The 52-year-old was arrested by HM Revenue & Customs officers for allegedly evading duty payable on the Seville cigarettes of around £68,000.

The man, from Chichester, was released on bail until April 16 while investigations continue.

Derek Brooks, HMRC Senior Investigation Officer, said: "HM Revenue & Customs investigators have prevented a quantity of illegally imported cigarettes from being sold on the UK's streets, undercutting legitimate retailers. 

The cigarettes will be burned at a power station to fuel the National Grid.

Source: Daily Echo, 18 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/aSRMqX

Japan to seek total smoking ban in public places, Yomiuri Says

Japan’s Health Ministry will urge local governments to introduce a total ban on smoking in public places, the Daily Yomiuri said.

The ban would include schools, hospitals, offices and buses, the report said. The ministry will allow operators of restaurants, hotels and other facilities to keep separated smoking areas as a temporary measure, the report said.

The government will issue a recommendation on passive smoking this month, Health Minister Akira Nagatsuma said, without providing details.

“We’ll further discuss the matter while looking at what foreign countries are doing as well as Japan’s attitude to smoking,” Nagatsuma said.

Japan Tobacco Inc., the world’s third-largest publicly traded cigarette maker, hasn’t been notified of any official government recommendation, spokesman Kazunori Hayashi said. The company has previously made recommendations to the health ministry about steps to prevent passive smoking.

Source: Bloomberg, 19 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/95gBTi

Hologram advances seen to combat counterfeiting

Advances in hologram technology can help combat terrorism and a global wave of counterfeiting that is costing more than $50 billion in lost revenue, industry experts said.

Ukraine's EDAPS Consortium, which is endorsed by Interpol, called the global incidence of counterfeiting an "epidemic" that threatened security and drained resources of governments. The global counterfeiting operations are believed by law enforcement experts to be worth about $1 trillion.

Hologram technology is being applied in an unlikely setting -- cigarette tax stamps that EDAPS said would save governments more than $50 billion in lost revenue.

Customized holograms for tobacco packages are part of a law-enforcement solution that is designed to cut off funds supporting organized crime and terrorism, "two consistent beneficiaries of the world's near trillion-dollar counterfeit and piracy plague," EDAPS said.

The company was responsible for an innovative e-passport adopted by Interpol, the first travel document of its kind.

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control has determined the traffic in an estimated 600 billion counterfeit and smuggled cigarettes crossing national borders annually represents $50 billion in lost revenue, affecting nations throughout the world.

Some 400 governmental organizations and companies use holographic elements produced by EDAPS Consortium.

"By combining state-of-the-art holograms with our enforcement methodology and Track and Trace System, we are enabling government agencies to double their revenues from the sales of excisable products while shutting down illegal uses that often fund transnational criminal activities," said Alexander Vassiliev, chairman of EDAPS.

Michel Danet, secretary-general of the World Customs Organization, singled out the holographic security elements as "a good example for other states" to follow.

Danet told the Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy that counterfeiters concentrated not only on new methods of counterfeiting but also on developing fake security elements including bogus holograms.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund declared the introduction of anti-counterfeiting measures, such as forgery-proof tax stamps, essential to combating tobacco smuggling.

The new Ukrainian passport manufactured by the EDAPS Consortium won praise from the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. A driver's license produced by the company won commendation from the European Union.

Interpol's new e-passport is designed to enable agents to travel freely to combat cross-border crime and terrorism. Pakistan was the first country to provide visa waiver status to Interpol's e-passport.

Source: UPI, 17 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/9Qr0cV

South Africa: Pressure Groups want higher tobacco tax

The National Council Against Smoking (NCAS) has urged finance minister Pravin Gordhan to review tobacco tax rates in South Africa.

Gordhan announced that cigarette tax would increase by R1,24 per pack.

The group accused government of sticking to a policy which kept tobacco taxes low in favour of tobacco companies at the detriment of public health and government revenues.

The group said South Africa's tax rates on tobacco were among the lowest in the world. "Since 1997 government set the cigarette tax rate at 50% of retail price and gradually increased it to 52% in 2002," the NCAS said in a statement. It has remained at 52% since.

According to the NCAS smokers in Ireland would part with R93 for a packet of 20 cigarettes which makes up 79% of the retail price. They said the average tax incidence in the 27 member states of the European Union was 78%.

NCAS spokesperson, Dr Yussuf Saloojee said the group hoped to meet with the finance minister to alert him and his colleagues of the profits that could be made by government if cigarette tax was increased.

He said more people were also bound to quit smoking if the tax was increased. "Research that has been conducted has shown that people are in support of increased tax. Some say they would be more likely to quit smoking if the tax was increased," said Saloojee.

"Increasing costs will discourage children from starting to smoke. If a cigarette costs 10c a child is at a better position to buy it," he said.

In his speech Gordhan said government was taking a stronger stance on alcohol abuse and would review the current tax benchmarks for alcohol beverages.

Saloojee said the organisation welcomed this suggestion but said they expected the minister to apply the same stance on tobacco.

He commended government for introducing laws that prohibited people from smoking in public places but warned that the laws were not enforced.

According to the World Health Organisation tobacco use killed about 100 million people in the 20th century. If the current trends continue there will be up to one billion tobacco-related deaths in the 21st century.

If left unchecked, tobacco will cause more than eight million deaths by 2030 and 80 percent of these deaths will occur in the developing world.

Source: All Africa, 18 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/beJ4VB

India: Tobacco GDP myth stubbed out

India’s tobacco industry accounts for only about 1 per cent of industrial gross domestic product (GDP), according to a new analysis which suggests that tobacco’s assumed value to the economy is a myth. 

The analysis by two economists has shown that tobacco’s share of industrial GDP and contribution to India’s foreign exchange reserves is insignificant, questioning views that stifling tobacco could hurt the economy.

“Campaigns for curbs on tobacco have always encountered arguments that tobacco makes a significant contribution to the economy through revenue and jobs. Our work shows that this is untrue,” said Saradindu Bhaduri, assistant professor of economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a co-author of the report released today by the non-government Voluntary Health Association of India.

Tobacco’s share in India’s GDP dropped from 1.8 per cent in 1999-2000 to 1.1 per cent in 2005-06, the report said. The net foreign exchange earnings from tobacco stands at Rs 346 crore — just 0.2 per cent of total foreign exchange reserves.

In the 1990s, the Indian Council of Medical Research had generated data to show that the health costs of tobacco-related illnesses far exceed what the tobacco industry may contribute to the economy.

But tobacco lobbyists have argued that the industry is also a big employer.

The new economic analysis has acknowledged that tobacco is labour-intensive and accounts for about 5 per cent of industrial jobs in the country, but its authors also caution that much of this employment is based on exploitation.

The average annual worker’s wages in the tobacco sector is about Rs 17,900, which is among the lowest in any industrial sector, the report said. “This is pure exploitation — not honourable employment,” Bhaduri said.

“Yes, tobacco is a large employer, but it also comes at a health cost,” he said. The report points out that raising excise duty on tobacco has had only limited impacts on pulling people away from smoking and has recommended the introduction of a “discriminatory tax” on cigarette and bidi production.

“We’re proposing something new — a tax policy that makes tobacco production less lucrative than it is today and thus discourages investments in the tobacco sector,” Bhaduri said. The indirect excise taxes address consumers — such a direct tax selectively imposed on tobacco industry would be a disincentive for tobacco production, he said.

The report said wages sometimes do not conform to minimum prescribed wages. “In Bengal, we encountered workers who were paid only Rs 45 for rolling 1,000 bidis. The minimum wage there is Rs 100 per 1,000 bidis,” Bhaduri said.

Source: Telegraph India, 18 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/dhRKEs