CAIRO, July 12 , 2018 (MENA) – Egypt's leading cigarette maker, the Eastern Company, on Thursday announced new hikes in cigarette prices. The decision to raise the price of cigarettes will come into effect as of Thursday, the company said in a statement. The new increase is ranging between LE1-5 per pack of smokes, the statement added. Eastern Company supplies about 70 percent of Egypt's cigarette market. It is estimated that approximately twenty percent of the population uses tobacco products daily, cigarettes being the most common form of tobacco consumption in Egypt, with an estimated twenty billion cigarettes smoked annually. Next to cigarettes, shisha water-pipe is the most common form of tobacco consumption. Since the cultivation of tobacco is prohibited in Egypt the manufacturer must rely entirely on imported tobacco. According to rough estimates the consumption of tobacco products in Egypt rises by four to five percent annually.
