Women began to smoke half

Verkhovna Rada decided to increase the excise rate on tobacco products. Pack of cigarettes "Pryłuki special" in November, costs have grown by 2.5 UAH, Prima Lux - to 2,25 grn, "Troika" - 2,6 UAH, "Monte Carlo" - 3 UAH, "Glamor" and "Camel - 4 UAH.
- Ukrainians move to cheaper cigarettes, which are illegally imported from Russia and Moldova - the general director of association "Ukrtyutyun Valentina Khomenko. - And our companies are beginning to turn off the program on modernization of production and planning staff reductions.
Excise tax on tobacco for the first time this year raised in May. A stack of cigarettes went up by then 1,25-3 UAH. In October and September, the price of cigarettes was raised producers. In the end, because of falling demand for tobacco production in Ukraine at the 2009th fallen by 20%.
At the same time increasing the volume of smuggling of cheap cigarettes, according to manufacturers. This year, seized contraband tobacco products to 1,82 million UAH - to 26-fold higher than the same period last year. And this despite the fact that they blow around a tenth of the illegal goods.
But customs officials paint a different picture. In fact, smuggling from Ukraine are trafficked into four to six times more cigarettes than imports.
- Production of cigarettes in Ukraine, 2.5 times the capacity of the domestic market - explains the 34-year-old Svetlana Sudak from the press service of the State customs. - In Europe, the price of cigarettes is 10-12 times higher than ours. Because Ukraine among the leading suppliers of smuggled tobacco products in the European Union. And manufacturers are tentatively placed into the production of contraband component.
- International experience suggests that raising cigarette prices by 20 per cent above inflation leads to the fact that quit smoking 5 percent of smokers. But these measures are too little to overcome the massive tobacco Okura neither I, - says 24-year-old Alexander Ustinov, a coalition of NGOs "For a smoke-free Ukraine." - The need to prohibit smoking in public places, hospitals and trains, allocating half of the area establishments catering for non-smokers. In Ukraine, some of what they do. In 2005 smoked 42 per cent of Ukrainians are now - 31. Among women, smoking rates fell by half.
According to the coalition, every fifth day Ukrainian teenager lights a cigarette. Die annually from tobacco 100 thousand Ukrainians.