Romanian experts call for increased excise to combat smoking

Experts here recommended on Tuesday an increase in excise duties on tobacco to combat smoking in Romania.

The tobacco consumption is high in the eastern European country, with nearly 5 million Romanian adults smoking tobacco, showed a report on tobacco products in Romania.

A rise in the excise duties from 60 to 65 percent would lead to hundreds of thousands of persons quitting smoking, professor Zoltan Abram, coordinator of a project on the development of smoking research in Romania, was quoted as saying by official Agerpres news agency.

"An increase in excise duties on tobacco to 65 percent of the retail prices would lead to 400,000 smoking adults quitting smoking, while boosting revenues by 1.35 billion lei," showed the report conducted the Targu Mures University of Medicine and Pharmacy in partnership with the U.S. Wake Forest School of Medicine.

The report also reveals that in 2010, as many as 42,800 Romania died prematurely from smoking-related illnesses, with the costs of caring for such illnesses having exceeded 1.2 billion lei (300 million U.S. dollars) in 2012, about 5.4 percent of the total public healthcare spending that year.