Lithuania‘s black market of tobacco products has expanded over the past year and is among the largest in the European Union, a study by the international audit and consulting company KPMG revealed.
Illicit cigarettes accounted for 17.7 percent of Lithuania’s total tobacco market in 2019. The black market was larger only in Greece, where it constituted 22 percent of all tobacco products.
Lithuania’s state budget lost 68 million euros in potential revenue last year due to illicit cigarettes, a 2-million-euro increase from the year before.
The situation in other Baltic states has improved, as the illegal tobacco market has shrunk in Latvia and Estonia over the last year.
The black market accounted for 14 percent of all tobacco products sold in Latvia and 7 percent in Estonia. It contracted by 5.4 and 2.1 percent in Latvia and Estonia respectively.
KPMG‘s survey showed that last year the total number of cigarettes smoked in Lithuania inched down slightly. But the consumption of illegal cigarettes has increased by 0.04 percent, or 0.2 million units, from 2018.
Around 80 percent of illegal cigarettes imported to Lithuania came from neighbouring Belarus.
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