World
Negotiators from 168 nations made progress on defining cooperation to put an end to counterfeit cigarette smuggling at talks held at the World Health Organization.
“There has been a great amount of progress,” Vijay Trivedi, policy advisor to the FCTC secretariat, told Reuters. “We made breakthroughs in important areas of the protocol, but just need to carry on with this momentum.”
The closed door meetings resulted in an outline for a “tracing and tracking” program that should aid countries in identifying smuggled cigarettes and smugglers. Duty-free cigarettes, though, proved to be a stumbling block, with no agreement taking place on this topic.
Further details will be hammered out in Uruguay this November when negotiators meet again to finalize the treaty.
The illicit sale of cigarettes is believed to cost governments around the globe close to US$40 billion in lost taxes.



