Lower excise tax hike on tobacco than we expected

Philip Morris CR: The Czech Pravo daily today says that the Cabinet, after a meeting yesterday, will propose a lower cigarette-excise-tax increase than has been previously reported. Last week, Finance Minister Bohuslav Sobotka announced that the Czech government’s cigarette excise tax would be raised by 400 bps to 44% of the average retail pack price as of December 2002 (we had expected a 3.4% hike in January 2003).

Jiri Soustruznik