These figures clearly state the complexity of the global tobacco supply chain. Asia supplied 44.6% of the global total, followed by North American cigarette shippers at 4.7%. Among continents, European countries earned the most from tobacco cigarettes exports during 2017 with shipments amounting to $11.9 billion or 47.4% of worldwide exported cigarettes. From 2016 to 2017, the value of globally exported cigarettes from all the countries has increased by 18% and is expected to rise furthermore. Overall, the value of exported tobacco cigarettes rose by an average of 5.3% for all exporting countries since 2013 where worldwide shipments of cigarettes were valued at $23.9 billion. Looking at the timeliness of this issue, let’s look into why is traceability important for the tobacco industry.Įach year about 2 million people collect, dry, and package about 8 million tons of tobacco, grown on 16,275 square miles of land to make 5 trillion cigarettes that are distributed around the world. As defined in the directive, manufacturers of tobacco products in the EU countries are under the obligation to mark every tobacco product with a unique identifier to record their movement across the entire supply chain. The objective of the Tax Stamp & Traceability Forum is to bring together government excise and customs agencies, investigators and law enforcement, regulators, cigarette, alcohol and other excisable product manufacturers and distributors, security printers, supply chain specialists and integrators, suppliers of authentication and serialisation technologies, and systems integrators – to hear about and discuss the latest developments in tax stamp and traceability systems and learn from one another about requirements, best practice and potential solutions.It has been a week since the traceability systems and security features defined in the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU (in effect as of ) should be in place in the Member States of the EU for cigarettes and roll-your-own products to enable authorities and citizens to verify the authenticity of tobacco products. And the same vehicle, in providing proof of authenticity and secure track and trace, also protects the interests of other stakeholders, including economic operators, consumers and public health bodies. Governments, which are losing billions each year in lost revenues, can protect themselves and this valuable source of revenue by deploying tax stamps as a vehicle for tax collection and proof of payment. This income is, however, under threat from the illicit trade in all these goods – whether in the form of contraband, counterfeiting or tax evasion. Excise duty on tobacco, spirits, wine, beer and other excisable goods is an important source of revenue for governments.
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