The creation of a regulatory framework for regulating tobacco turnover, as well as the introduction of a labeling system for tobacco products, can help reduce the share of illicit trafficking in this area to 2-5%. This was stated by Vladislav Zaslavsky, Director of the Department of Labeling and Traceability of Goods of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation at the Anti-Counterfeit forum held in St. Petersburg.
"The state has been working for a long time to make a regulatory framework for the regulation, control and supervision of the tobacco and nicotine-containing market, and in general, the regulatory framework has been created. Secondly, a technological base has been created in the form of a marking system. We are at the start. We hope that all these measures and all the opportunities that have been put into the hands of the regulator and the controller will make it possible to seriously change the situation. We expect that we will return to 2, 3, 5% of illegal turnover," Zaslavsky said.
According to him, now the share of illicit trafficking in tobacco and nicotine-containing products, according to various estimates, on average in Russia ranges from 13.3% to 13.9%.
Zaslavsky added that the creation of a separate regulation of this sphere in Russia as a whole has been completed, many regulatory measures have appeared. In August, Rospotrebnadzor received the authority to monitor mandatory labeling requirements for all goods in retail and is starting to develop risk indicators based on information from the state labeling system "Honest Mark".
The Honest Sign system has been implemented in Russia since 2019 to counteract the illegal turnover of goods. It covers dairy products, bottled water, medicines, tobacco, beer, shoes, light industry goods, fur coats, tires, perfumes, cameras, dietary supplements, antiseptics, medical products, wheelchairs, sweet drinks. Currently, an experiment is being conducted on the labeling of caviar. The operator of the Honest Sign system is the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies.
Source: