The sale of cigarettes in Poland is systematically growing. In the first two months of this year, it increased by as much as 11%. In January and February, Poles smoked over 742 million more cigarettes than at the same time in 2021.

Meanwhile, the share of the shadow economy has been consistently declining for years, which in 2021 was only 5.8% of the tobacco market, compared to from 19% in 2015, says the report of the Institute of Economic Forecasts and Analyzes (IPAG).

For many years, the largest volume of cigarettes was smuggled to Poland from Belarus and Ukraine, being supported and co-organized often unofficially by state services and enterprises of Belarus. Starting from mid-2021, due to the hybrid war on the Polish-Belarusian border, on the one hand, the protection of the Polish border has been strengthened, making the transit of illegal goods more difficult, and on the other hand, the Belarusian services have put more emphasis on controlling illegal migration than on current activity.

At the beginning of 2022, due to the situation in Ukraine and on the Ukrainian-Polish border, there were suspicions of a possible strengthening of this direction of smuggling. In the opinion of IPAG, despite the dramatic situation prevailing there, the control of goods traffic has not been disturbed, and the possible carrying of small amounts of cigarettes by refugees does not pose a significant problem.

As analysts indicate that a larger threat in the near future may be caused by the immigrants to Poland who previously were employed in tobacco factories operating in Ukraine, which had to stop production due to military operations. They can find employment in plants operating in Poland, dealing with the illegal manufacture of counterfeit cigarettes.

According to IPAG, a decrease in the share of illegal sales in the market to 5.8% is not only the result of the effective actions of Polish services but also the dynamically growing legal sale of cigarettes in Poland, despite the increase in excise duty on cigarettes that was introduced in 2020.

Adrian Andrzejewski order