All the cigarettes sold in the Iranian market under the brand Marlboro are smuggled as there is yet no official permission issued for the import of this brand, said deputy minister of industries, mine, and agriculture Mojtaba Khosrotaj. He argued that legal imports of the brand will have certain advantages as the government can make an annual income of nearly 5 trillion rials ($178.6 million based on official exchange rate). “Moreover, the hygienic and standard issues can be better monitored if the cigarette is imported legally,” he was quoted by ISNA as saying. He also called for new mechanisms to be put in place in order to tackle cigarette smuggling, saying the current mechanism of solely relying on tariff imposition has failed to yield the desired result.
