Smoking rates appear to have fallen significantly this year, with both revenues from tobacco duty and passenger imports falling year-on-year.
The Treasury said Monday that tobacco duty revenue had fallen to some 330 million euros in the first half of the year, compared with about 410 million in the year-ago period.

The government raised the tobacco duty at the beginning of the year.

According to a Taylor Nelson Sofres poll passenger imports fell to about 200 million cigarettes in the January-to-April period, down from some 250 million in the same period a year ago.

Pekka Puska, the director-general of the Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), said the biggest factor explaining the falls was a shift in attitudes on smoking.

STT