The Portuguese Federation of Tobacco Wholesalers (FPGT) issued a statement this week expressing concern about the consequences of a ban on vending tobacco sales and warning of an increase in counterfeiting and smuggling.
“With the restrictions on the sale of tobacco in cafes and restaurants by legal businesses, an opportunity is created for the growth of the tobacco trade and counterfeiting,” Helena Lopes Pereira, president of the FPGT, said in a statement.
Helena Lopes Pereira adds that “the smuggling and sale of illicit tobacco is not only an unacceptable manifestation of the parallel economy and crime, but also poses a serious risk to public health, as there is no reliability regarding the origin, the nature of the products used in counterfeit tobacco and the accommodation in the distribution process”.
The FPGT indicates that in the first six months of the year “millions of smuggled cigarettes were seized without any form of control or traceability of the products”.
For the FPGT, “this is a scenario that could get much worse with the planned changes to the new tobacco law being analyzed in the Assembly of the Republic”.
“The Federation believes that the new legal framework proposed by the new tobacco law promotes the emergence of a new dynamic in the parallel economy of distribution and commercialization of counterfeit tobacco, by package or by unit,” he said.
Source: DN
