Germany - smokers smoking less but it's costing more..

January 20, 2010 - Although new figures show that Germans are smoking less, they are spending more on tobacco products, according to the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) on Tuesday, January 19th. The increase in spending is despite what appears to be a move away from expensive cigars and cigarillos during the financial crisis.

Tobacco products worth €22.8 billion (32.14 billion USD) retail were sold in Germany in 2009, a total sum of 1.4 percent more than in the previous year, the new Destatis figures showed. Yet the number of taxed cigarettes dropped by 1.6 percent to €1.4 billion (1.97 billion USD) The financial crisis seems to have hit the luxury tobacco market in Germany particularly hard, with the taxed sales of cigars and cigarillos down by 24.6 percent.

Meanwhile the sale of fine-cut tobacco suitable for making roll-up cigarettes rose by 11.7 percent, the figures showed. Sales of pipe tobacco were down by 57.2 percent, but this initially startling figure seems to have been largely generated by a change in the tax rules which put so-called pseudo pipe tobacco into the same category as fine-cut, as it is not suitable for pipe use.

Reference: Germans cut back on smoking, but spend more as prices increase, German news agency Deutscher Depeschendienst (ddp)/The Local ((news@thelocal.de), 1/19/2010.

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