Over the past four years, the number of smokers decreased by a quarter in Ukraine, according to the Ukrtyutyun association.
The Ukrainian government has developed a plan for the growth of prices for tobacco. According to it, Ukrainians will pay at least 100 UAH for one pack of cigarettes by 2022.
This project has so far been rejected in the Verkhovna Rada. However, they offered a tax on cheap tobacco products. Therefore, the cost of cigarettes will still sharply increase until the end of 2018. In December, according to experts, the cheapest pack will cost 28 UAH.
The excise tax on tobacco has been rising regularly since 2008 in Ukraine. For 10 years, the cost of a pack has increased 20 times. And this is not the limit.
Andrey, the resident of Kyiv, has been smokes for 10 years already. He says that he is not going to give up smoking yet – he is ready to pay even 60 UAH for a pack.
“If there is 100 UAH, I will give up smoking,” – Andrey says.
But Sergei does not hide: even 40 UAH is expensive for him. Therefore, if the price tags be rewritten, the people will struggle with a bad habit. Although they not sure they will succeed.
“I tried to reduce the number of cigarettes a day, but nothing happens,” – the man complains.
However, the sellers are sure that Ukrainians will not give up smoking en masse. They say that in the Czech Republic a pack of cigarettes is already 150 UAH, but the number of smokers does not become less. Indeed, in Europe the price of cigarettes starts - with our money - from 100 UAH per pack. The plans of the Ukrainian government are to raise the price of tobacco gradually, so that the cost of cigarettes in Ukraine equals with the European prices until 2022.
