Egyptians see $4bn go up in smoke every year

Egyptians spend more than six billion Egyptian pounds every year on smoking, the equivalent of $4 billion a year, The New Khaleej reported on Friday. The statistics were revealed by the head of Al-Sharqiyyah Cigarette Company, which has a 70 per cent share of the cigarette market in Egypt.

Mohamed Othman pointed out that the Egyptian people smoke 280 million cigarettes every day, worth an incredible 220 million Egyptian pounds. He added that 2.5 billion pounds is paid monthly to the government in taxes.

Cigarettes prices hiked after the Egyptian parliament agreed to raise VAT on tobacco and related products. At 42 per cent of the total tax income, this is one of the government’s main income sources in the struggle to overcome Egypt’s financial deficit.

Read: The destruction of the Egyptian economy