Philip Morris Polska

The excise tax on pouch tobacco that can be used to roll 1,000 cigarettes amounts to zł.52, while the tax for the same number of ready to smoke cigarettes is zł.112. Moreover, the government plans to increase the excise tax on pre-rolled cigarettes even further—initial projections for next year's budgets anticipate that the tax will rise by 14.7%. “In a situation where there is such a huge discrepancy between the tax rates, we should expect that manufacturers will develop the production of the products burdened with the lower tax. This is why we have entered the pouch tobacco market,” explained PM Polska president Jacek Olczak. PM, which now has a 38% share of the domestic pre-made cigarette market, wants to win a 40% share of the pouch tobacco market. It is also likely that the other cigarette producers will follow suit. (Poland AM, September 17)