Austria takes tough stance on cigarette imports

Austrian customs officials have started imposing tough fines on persons bringing Czech cigarettes to Austria and in addition they confiscate all the non-permitted cigarettes they find, the daily Lidove noviny wrote Tuesday.
Czechs taking out more than one carton of Czech cigaretteswhile travelling for holiday to Croatia via Austria could be severely punished because the Austrian customs officials have started imposing tough fines on all drivers who violate "the tobacco law" while crossing the Austrian border, the paper says.
Under the law, passed shortly before the Czech Republic joined the Schengen area without border checks last December, one person can only take out 200 pieces of cigarettes with the Czech-language health warning message while travelling from the Czech Republic to Austria.
Drivers have to pay a 50 euro fine for each additional carton of cigarettes if caught and besides, Austrian police confiscate the cigarettes from them, the paper says.
"The time when we just reprimand the people violating the law or simply return cars back to the Czech Republic is over. At present we confiscate everything that crosses the permitted limit," Franz Dorninger, head of the Linz customs administration, told Lidove noviny.
While as recently as in January and February Austrian customs officials were still lenient towards Czechs violating the tobacco law, in March they imposed 47 fines for carrying non-permitted amounts of cigarettes from the Czech Republic to Austria and 48 fines were imposed in April, Dorninger says.
"On average, the drivers who are usually caught having two additional cartons of cigarettes above the one permitted carton on them had to pay a 100 euro fine," he says.
However, statistics does not allow to find out whether the drivers punished were Czechs or Austrians, HN writes.
The Czech Industry and Trade Ministry resents the Austrian police raids on people taking Czech tobacco products out to Austria. On the basis of the EU agreements from January 1, 2008, Austria must allow the import of up to 800 pieces of Czech-made cigarettes per one person, Lidove noviny writes.
However, since Austrian cigarette sellers have threatened to stage a general trike if their government failed to protect them against the cheap Czech competition Vienna has adopted special measures.
Although it has officially confirmed that people are allowed to take to Austria up to four cartons of Czech cigarettes per one person this is only possible if the health warning message is written in German.
The import of cigarettes with the Czech health warning message remains limited to one carton.
"In our opinion, such measure runs counter to the rules of free trade within the EU," Czech Industry and Trade Ministry spokesman Tomas Bartovsky told Lidove noviny.
Industry and Trade Minister Martin Riman has thus called on Austrian Health Minister Andrea Kdolsky in written to abolish the controversial measure.
Riman was not satisfied with Kdolsky's answer in which she pointed to the protection of the health of the Austrian population.
He has thus called on the Association of Czech tobacco products traders to complain about the measure at the European Commission, Lidove noviny writes.
Despite the gradual increase in prices of tobacco products in the Czech Republic they are still cheaper there than in Germany or Austria. Foreigners thus buy roughly one-fourth of the 73 billion pieces of cigarettes annually sold in the Czech Republic, the daily Pravo wrote on Monday.
According to Pravo, foreigners took some 5.6 billion cigarettes out of the Czech Republic last year.
On the other hand, some 1.8 billion cigarettes were taken to the Czech Republic from Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia where tobacco products are substantially cheaper for Czechs, Pravo said.

‘Joint effort needed’ to strengthen tobacco law

A TOTAL of 52 participants including mall managers, restaurant and hotel managers, health professionals, legal experts, law enforcement agents and government officials recently attended a National Health Authority’s (NHA) workshop on Tobacco Law number 20 of 2002.
Penalties for violating the law include fines of up to QR5,000, closure of establishment which violates the law and jail of up to six months.
The aim of the workshop, which is one of the activities lined up for the commemoration of the ‘World No Tobacco Day’ was to discuss how to improve the implementation of the law among other things.
The theme for the year is ‘Tobacco-Free Youth’.
The director of the Public health at the NHA, Dr Gail Fraser Chanpong, who declared open the workshop, said that tobacco is a major public health problem in the community and that urgent cigarettes control efforts are needed.
Prof Ravinder Mamtani of the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar discussed the effects of tobacco and highlighted its effects, including cancer and heart diseases.
“Globally, tobacco kills approximately 5.4mn people annually, that is, one person every six seconds,” he said.
Legal expert at the NHA Asmaa Abdel Halim highlighted parts of the law and also discussed how it organises and controls tobacco sale and smoking in public places.
She stressed the importance of collaboration between all governmental agencies, families, educational institutions and others to reach the goals set by the country.
Head of the Non-communicable Diseases section Adenike Ajani said legislation is one of many strategies that can be used for tobacco control, especially because of its special consideration for the youths.
She added that the law prohibits the sale of tobacco to minors and advertisement that may encourage its use among youths.
Ajani noted that tobacco in the law refers to all kinds of products including water-pipe (sheesha) and chewing tobacco (suwaikah), while adding that there is no safe form of tobacco.
Major Hamad al-Ansari of the Ministry of Interior said that law enforcement officials will continue to support the cigarettes control efforts of the NHA, adding that official channels of collaboration need to be established to strengthen the role of the police officers in the tobacco control.

New Camel brand contains crushable capsule

Consumers can squeeze this blue capsule inside the filter of the new Camel Crush to release a menthol flavor. The brand is being test-marketed at local Quality Mart stores.

A tiny blue capsule is the key element in R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s latest attempt to woo smokers.
The capsule is embedded into the filter of a regular Camel Lights cigarette.
When smokers squeeze and snap the capsule, it releases menthol to change the flavor. The cigarettes — packaged in a sleek black and blue box and called Camel Crush — is being test-marketed at local Quality Mart convenience stores, and beginning this month in Pennsylvania.
"We're giving the adult smoker the ability to savor two distinct flavors with Camel Crush and customize the experience," said Brian Stebbins, the senior business-unit director for Camel. "They can crush it a little and get a slight flavor over the length of the smoke. They can crush it completely and get a fresh menthol blast."
Reynolds views product innovation as a positive and differentiating way to compete for adult smokers and market share.
However, the capsule also has become the latest target of anti-smoking groups, which claim that product innovations such as Camel Crush and the marketing of cigarettesare geared toward attracting young consumers.
"Tobacco companies have carefully designed their products to attract new users, almost all of whom are children," said The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in a February report titled "Big Tobacco's Guinea Pigs."
"Tobacco products are far from simple tobacco leaf rolled in paper or other packaging. They are highly engineered nicotine-delivery devices, finely tuned to appeal to the taste, feel, smell, and other sensations of new and addicted smokers," the report says.
Stebbins declined to say how much Reynolds has spent to develop Camel Crush, but it has been in the works for several years.
"We had to find the proper type of capsule," Stebbins said. "We also had to invent manufacturing machinery to put the capsule in the same place in the filter consistently without breaking it." Reynolds said it has obtained a patent on the machinery.

Fire-safe cigarettes bill passes Senate

A bill sponsored by Sen. Rosalind Kurita of Clarksville to require "fire-safe" cigarettes in Tennessee passed the state Senate today and is on its way to Gov. Bredesen for his signature.

The fire-safe cigarettes bill passed in the house by an overwhelming majority on April 10 and was approved in the Senate this morning.

Fire-safe cigarettes are made from a special paper that contains "speed bumps" — areas of increased thickness that extinguish the cigarettes when air is not pulled through them, according to a news release today from the Senate Democratic Caucus. Unattended cigarettes burn out when the flame hits the speed bumps.

The new law will require that only these cigarettes be sold in Tennessee.

Tobacco market practices

LONDON - Britain's consumer affairs watchdog said on Friday it suspected cigarettes price-fixing involving tobacco companies and retailers, including all big four supermarket chains, between 2000 and 2003.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) issued a so-called statement of objections naming two tobacco manufacturers -- Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco-owned Gallaher -- and 11 retailers.
The retailers are Wal-Mart-owned Asda, Co-operative Group, First Quench, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury, Shell, Somerfield, T&S Stores, Tesco and TM Retail.
Imperial Tobacco had no immediate comment. Gallaher, which is owned by Japan Tobacco, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The OFT made two allegations, including that there were arrangements between "each manufacturer and each retailer that restricted the ability of each of these cigarettes retailers to determine its selling prices independently, by linking the retail price of a manufacturer's brand to the retail price of a competing brand of another manufacturer".
The second was more specific, alleging "in the case of Gallaher, Imperial Tobacco, Asda, Sainsbury, Shell, Somerfield and Tesco, the indirect exchange of proposed future retail prices between competitors".
The allegations come two days after the OFT was forced to apologise to supermarket Morrisons and pay 100,000 pounds ($197,700) to settle a defamation action over an incorrect accusation in another antitrust probe.

S.Korea's Tobacco Giant Opens First Overseas Plant In Turkey

South Korea`s top tobacco company Korean Tobacco & Ginseng (KT&G) has opened on Thursday a factory in Turkey which is the first overseas plant of the company.
KT&G plans to produce two cigarettes brands at its plant in Aegean province of Izmir, company`s chief executive Kwak Young Kyoon said at the opening ceremony.
The plant, which has the capacity to produce 2 billion cigarettes a year, will ship 60 percent of its production to central European and Middle Eastern countries, mainly to Iran, Bulgaria, Hungary and Spain.
Kyoon said his company spent nearly 50 million USD for the plant, adding that KT&G targets 3 percent of market share in its first year in Turkey, and aims at 5 percent market share in the next three year.
KT&G is the largest tobacco company of South Korea and sells 100 billion cigarettes a year to almost 40 countries. The company is also active in ginseng, pharmaceutical and real estate sectors.

cheap cigarettes store online

number one international cigarette shop that offers cigarettes. Our prices are cheaper than somewhere on internet.

High quality cigarettes are available for every visitor of this site.
Buying cigarettes online from us is the easiest way to save your money and time. The-cheapest-cigarettes.com offers cheap cigarettes of your favorite brands at the cheapest price but the quality remains superb, as usual!ur store sells all premium brands via Internet.

This cigarettes store and keeps customers database highly confidential, thus we do not report any information about our consumers to any authorities. You may pay your order by Visa Card.
Out goal is to offer you excellent customer service and the freshest cigarettes and tobacco for the lowest possible price. We have set rules on providing you excellent customer service and ensure that you are 100% Satisfied with our products. Our money back guarantee policy proves our intentions on ensuring your satisfaction.

Delivery of discount cigarettes to US is carried out for 7 up to 10 days. Make purchase at The-cheapest-cigarettes.com and you will appreciate the quality of our service. We guarantee the confidentiality of the customer data and safety payment of the goods.

IMPORTANT: We have never reported and don't report any information about our customers to any legal authorities. We guarantee your safety while shopping with us and we totally fulfill our promise in keeping your information 100% confidential.

The-cheapest-cigarettes.com provides the customers:
- the lowest price
- the highest personal safety
- fast delivery
- minimum risk of lost shipments (cigarettes are sent as registered mail with delivery confirmation)

Latvia FinMin projects average inflation at 14.6 pct in 2008

RIGA - Latvia's average inflation is expected to reach 14.6 percent in 2008, Latvian Finance Minister Atis Slakteris told ministers in a report on budget performance in the first quarter of the year, said the BNS news agency.
The minister said, though, that this was a 'cautiously optimistic scenario', adding that the economic situation in Latvia also depended on external risks, considering continuous problems in global financial markets, especially in the United States.
According to the report, average inflation in 2007 was 10.1%, including a 14.1 percent 12-month inflation in December.
In the first quarter of 2008, consumer prices jumped 5.7 percent with the 12-month inflation rate reaching 16.8 percent in March.
'Price increases could be seen in the regulated services sector, especially heating energy. Increased prices for cigarettes had a substantial effect on the average price level, basically because the excise tax on cigarettes was raised in compliance with EU minimum requirements. Food and fuel also rose in price significantly due to the global market situation,' the ministry said.

Japan Tobacco to shut its 9th-biggest cigarette plant in Japan

TOKYO - Japan Tobacco Inc., the country's largest cigarettesmaker, has decided to close down its cigarette plant in Ishikawa Prefecture, the ninth-biggest of its 10 cigarette factories, as a response to falling domestic demand, the company said Thursday.

Japan Tobacco has been expanding its cigarettes sales outside Japan, as well as its other business operations such as food and pharmaceuticals, to compensate for shrinking business opportunities in Japan, where the population is aging and an anti-smoking campaign is gaining ground.

The 35-year-old plant in Ishikawa produced 7.4 billion cigarette sticks in the year ended March 2007.
Japan Tobacco did not provide a figure for the total volume of its cigarette production nationwide.

The company sold a total of 174.9 billion cigarettes in Japan in the year to March 2007, down 6.4 percent from a year earlier.

Japan Tobacco has yet to assess the financial impact of the planned factory closure, it said.

Legislation to give FDA authority over tobacco

Legislation to grant the Federal Drug Administration authority over cigarettes product regulation has moved to the U.S. House of Representatives. The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill, which has bipartisan support.

According to a Wednesday article by the Media General News Service, the legislation would give the FDA control over nicotine levels, cigarette marketing and health-warning labels, proposals that have been in Congress for more than a decade.

The bill would reinstate the FDA's 1996 rule that restricted cigarettes marketing and sales to youth. According to a release by the Energy and Commerce Committee, the legislation would give the FDA the authority and resources to control regulation of tobacco products.

"The legislation provides FDA with resources necessary to fulfill its new responsibilities by requiring manufacturers and importers of tobacco to pay user fees to fund FDA's new regulatory responsibilities under the bill," according to the release.

According to the committee's Web site, the bill has more than 600 organizations supporting it.

Ryan Willcott, president of College Republicans, said there are parts of the legislation he likes, like the push to lower the levels of nicotine to help with addiction. He also said he likes that the government would be able to rid any appeals that cigarettes have to children, and he agrees with increasing the size of the surgeon general's warning on packaging.