• Aman said that demand for cigarettes increases each June as there is a widespread belief that there will be a tax increase in the new fiscal year

Gobran Mohammed

CAIRO: The managing director and CEO of Egypt’s biggest cigarette manufacturer has estimated that 18 percent of the country’s population are smokers.

Hany Aman, of Eastern Company, said that Egypt’s population smokes 100 billion cigarettes each year, pointing out that his company produces 70 billion per year, with its share of the Egyptian market ranging from 70 to 75 percent. The company also sells other tobacco products.

Aman said that demand for cigarettes increases each June as there is a widespread belief that there will be a tax increase in the new fiscal year.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics has revealed that the population of Egypt is now 105,293,708 people. The organization estimated in May 2021 that 18 million of them smoked.

The Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly on Monday chaired a meeting in the presence of the Public Enterprise Minister Mahmoud Esmat to focus on the work of the Eastern Company.

The meeting looked at the activities of the company, the available production volume of its various products, and the work plans and development programs being implemented.

Aman said that the coming weeks will witness the distribution of large quantities of cigarettes to merchants.

The market in Egypt has seen many increases in the prices of both domestic and foreign cigarettes. This situation has been exacerbated by consumers being charged different prices for the same product, depending on the store and the region in which it is bought.

This has given rise to a black market, and the Ministry of Interior last week raided a warehouse in Gharbia Governorate, in northern Egypt, and found 385,000 packs of cigarettes being illegally stored there.