In the first half of the year, the share of illegal tobacco products in the regions of the Urals amounted to 8.9%, having decreased by 1.4% over the year. According to experts, this is due, among other things, to the ban on the sale of unmarked electronic cigarettes. In addition, the share of counterfeit goods and the volume of illegal tobacco imports from non-CIS countries have decreased. According to analysts, the losses of the federal budget from the turnover of illegal products in the Ural Federal District in the first quarter amounted to almost 1.9 billion rubles. Market participants predict that next year we should not expect a sharp decrease in the volume of illegal products.
The share of illegal tobacco products (in particular, counterfeit and contraband cigarettes) in the Ural Federal District (UrFO), it reached 8.9%, which is 1.4% less than last year, the director of the National Scientific Competence Center (NSCC) told Kommersant-Ural Publishing House at an online conference Irina Bushina. In particular, in the Sverdlovsk region, the share of illicit tobacco trafficking decreased from 6% to 4.7% over the year, which is the lowest value in the last three years.
In Yamal, illicit trafficking in tobacco products decreased from 10.4% in the third quarter of 2023 to 5.5% in the second quarter of 2024, added Andrey Meshkov, Deputy Director of the Department of Digital labeling of goods and legalization of product turnover of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation. According to him, the share of illegal products in KhMAO-Yugra decreased from 4.5% to 2.7%. In the Tyumen region, on the contrary, an increase was recorded — from 0.3% to 10.4%.
In Russia as a whole, the share of illicit trafficking in tobacco products decreased over the year from 12.6% to 11.3%, which, according to experts, is due to previously introduced measures.
In particular, since December 1, 2023, a ban on retail trade in unmarked electronic cigarettes and liquids for them has been established.
According to Ms. Bushina, both for the Urals and for the country as a whole, it is characteristic that most of the illegal traffic is accounted for by contraband cigarettes coming from the EAEU member states. About 86.8% of illegally imported cigarettes are of Belarusian origin.
In the Ural tobacco market, illegal imports from the EAEU countries amounted to 3%, an increase of 0.2% over the year.
"The share of counterfeit products in the second quarter of 2024 amounted to 2.7%, which is 0.6% lower than last year's values. The largest decrease was noted in the segment of illegal imports from non—CIS countries — up to 1.7%," added Ms. Bushina.
Maxim Kurgansky, Director for the protection of the turnover of legal products at the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies, operator of the Honest Sign system, also noted a positive trend in the turnover of unmarked products in the Sverdlovsk region. Thus, sales of counterfeit products in the second quarter of 2024 decreased in the region by 49% compared to the first quarter, and unmarked products by 68%.
Vladlen Maksimov, President of the Association of Small-format Trade, Vice president of NP Opora, clarified that tobacco for small and medium—sized retail facilities is a traffic-forming product, while it is low-margin.
"From the point of view of consumers, tobacco must be present in the store's product matrix, because otherwise the buyer will not come to this outlet. Therefore, even if an entrepreneur would not like to work with such a commodity as tobacco, he cannot do it purely economically," Mr. Maksimov said.
He added that buyers themselves are pushing the seller to look for illegal goods, since such products are cheaper.
The losses of the federal budget from the turnover of illegal tobacco products in the Urals, according to a study by the National Research Committee, amounted to 1.84 billion rubles in the first quarter of this year, and 7.05 billion rubles in 2023. In general, in Russia, losses for the first quarter of 2024 amounted to 25 billion rubles, for 2023 — 99.2 billion rubles.
"In physical volume, we are talking about about 1.2 billion packs. The shortfall in federal budget revenues with such a share of losses from excise taxes and VAT will exceed 120 billion rubles by the end of the year," said Mr. Troshkin.
Igor Cherkassky, Head of the Department for Combating Illegal Trade at I.T.M.S. JSC, noted that one should not expect a sharp decrease in illegal trade in the future. He explained this by the fact that, although the main supplier of illegal cigarettes — Belarus — doubled the excise tax on the low-price segment, tobacco products from this country began to be imported into Russia in greater quantities without paying taxes.
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