British American Tobacco Bulgaria comments the record low levels of illicit trade in 2019

Interview with Mila Marechkova, Head of Marketing Operations in British American Tobacco Bulgaria:

The most recent results of the Empty Pack Survey that measures the levels of illegal trade in our country were just presented. How will you comment on them?

The data is from an independent study conducted by Nielsen and organized by five tobacco companies that are part of the Illicit Trade Initiative, including British American Tobacco Bulgaria. The research has been conducted since 2010 and measures the level of illicit trade of cigarettes in the country by collecting and analyzing empty cigarette packs every quarter.

We have presented the most recent results for this year and once again they confirm the tendency of maintaining low levels, as well as register the lowest share so far - namely 3.4% by mid-2019 compared to morethan 30% in the past years. In the same time, if we are to compare our country on this indicator with other Member States within EU where the same research is conducted, Bulgaria is again with the lowest levels.

What we have achieved so far is an example of the strong commitment and work of both the government and all law enforcement agencies based ontheir effective collaboration. All of this has led to these extremely low levels of illegal trade in the country, for which we would like to thank them. In this regard, we also welcome the initiated changes to the Penal Code that followed the raided illegal factories in the country. Reducing illegal trade protects the market from products of unclear origin while it also increases the revenue in the state budget.

I believe that in this regard the work and the collaboration between the state institutions and the...