Trade ministry calls for scrapping cigarette import quota

The Belarusian Ministry of Trade has suggested abolishing an import quota on cigarettes on January 1, 2008.

The ministry has already drawn up a draft directive providing for the measure and submitted it to the Council of Ministers, the ministry's official told BelaPAN.

The measure is part of agreements between Belarus and Russia on removing barriers in mutual trade.

The official said that a decision on scrapping the quota would be made by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The import restriction was introduced by the Belarusian leader's edict on December 17, 2002.

The Belarusian government set this year's cigarette import quota at 1.5 billion pieces. Four Belarusian companies were given the right to import cigarettes in 2007. The presidential property management department's Uskhodni Trading House has been authorized to import 750 million cigarettes, the British American Tobacco Trading Company 650 million cigarettes, Belkaapzneshhandal, an enterprise run by the Belarusian Union of Consumer Cooperatives' Societies, 98 million cigarettes, and a company named Delphi Dealings two million cigarettes.

A representative of the Belarusian State Food Industry Concern said that the abolition of the import quota would hit Belarusian cigarette manufacturers hard.

"We would like the Russian side to make some concessions as well," the official noted. "Although it has no quotas, it has licenses and other barriers to cigarette importers. It's very hard for us to bring our goods to the Russian market, that's why we don't export tobacco products to Russia."