Pakistan cracks down on South Korean cigarettes

[Raj30]

Pakistan cracks down on South Korean cigarettes - Channel NewsAsia
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani tax authorities took the unusual step Friday of threatening retailers with heavy fines and prison unless they stop selling cigarettes smuggled from South Korea.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) ran an advertisement in newspapers, warning that PINE cigarettes were being sold on the market without duty, and lacked mandatory health and underage warnings.

"Therefore all those dealing with these cigarettes will have to face legal consequences, under the applicable laws which may include five years imprisonment, 50,000 rupees (US$500) fine," the FBR warned.

Smuggled stock would be confiscated and additional fines imposed, it said.

Asked why the Korean brand alone was being targeted when so many other smuggled cigarettes are sold illegally across Pakistan, a customs official said PINE was the worst offender.

"Other brands are also being smuggled, but are also imported legally, whereas PINE is totally smuggled," the official said on condition of anonymity.

He said authorities would raid shops and warehouses from Monday. Cigarettes were smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan and China, he said.

The official had no precise figure, but estimated cigarette smuggling cost the Pakistani economy billions of rupees.

Pakistan has one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios in the world, estimated at 9.2 percent. Islamabad's refusal to implement sweeping tax reform was instrumental in the collapse of a $11.3 billion IMF bailout programme in 2010.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

US tobacco export to Third World

US tobacco export to Third World: ... [J Natl Cancer Inst Monogr. 1992] - PubMed - NCBI

Abstract

Global tobacco-related mortality will rise from the current 2.5 million to over 10 million annually by 2050. Most of this increase will occur in developing countries, where legislative controls and other measures that succeed in limiting the use of tobacco in industrialized countries do not exist or are at best inadequate. Of particular concern is the penetration of developing countries by the transnational tobacco companies, with aggressive promotional campaigns that include specific targeting of women, few of whom currently smoke in developing countries. The transnational tobacco companies advertise and market in ways long banned in the United States, for example, selling cigarettes without health warnings, advertising on television, and selling cigarettes with higher tar content than the same cigarettes sold in the United States. Also, tobacco advertising revenue prevents the media from reporting on the hazards of tobacco, a particularly serious problem in developing countries, where awareness of the harmfulness of tobacco is low. The transnational tobacco companies interfere with the national public health laws of developing countries via political and commercial pressures to open markets and to promote foreign cigarettes. This has led to an increase in market share by foreign cigarettes, but evidence also points to market expansion, especially among young people. The entry of the transnationals leads to a collapse of national tobacco monopolies or to their changing from unsophisticated government departments that may still cooperate with health initiatives on tobacco to copying the aggressive marketing and promotional behavior of the transnationals.

 

[pmaitra]

So is the crackdown only with the South Korean brand "PINE," and not all South Korean cigarettes?

 

[SilentKiller]

Crack down on South Korean as they took/copies Pakistan Financial Model in 50's...

Any North Korea threatened it that no new missiles for testing if u don't ban south korean goods....