New prices of cigarettes soon

All tobacco companies that operate in the market of Serbia still think about how much the price of cigarettes should be raised because of the increase in excise taxes. The exception is "Phlip Morris", which already increased the price by 5 to 15 RSD per pack at the end of December.

By regular increase in excise taxes, which is in effect starting January 1st, specific excise tax on cigarettes was increased from 12 to 17 RSD per pack, which is the reason why tobacco companies that operate in Serbia started announcing increases in the prices of their products already in mid-December. The first one to change the prices was company "Philip Morris", a member of which is Tobacco Industry Niš. The prices of cigarettes of this company were increased by 5 to 10% on December 29th, that is, by 5 to 15 RSD per pack. It is expected that the prices of cigarettes will be changed within the next few days by "British American Tobacco" (BAT), a part of which is Tobacco Industry Vranje, "Japan Tobacco International" (JTI) and local company "Monus". They were unable to say when and how much the prices will be increased.

People in BAT explain that they are still in the phase of internal analysis of influence of the increase in excise tax, while people in JTI say that they have not made any decision about price increase yet.

- When we make the decision, we will publish it in "Official Bulletin" - says Goran Pekez, the Corporate Affairs Manager in JTI.

People in "Monus" say that their prices will be increased on the basis in the excise tax increase, but they are unable to specify when the new prices will be put in effect. However, what people can hear from sellers is that the new price lists of all cigarettes at newsstands are expected in mid-January and that the prices will be changed by minimum 5 RSD per pack. Expected increase in prices of cigarettes will definitely affect the amount of budget incomes in 2010, which are expected to reach 54.4 billion RSD, nearly 10% of overall incomes in the budget.