Egypt's 14 million die-hard smokers were angry on Wednesday because the Government-owned Eastern Tobacco Company abruptly raised the prices of cigarettes by 50 piasters for the local brands. Under this surprise decision, which came into effect late Tuesday, sellers started selling cigarettes at the new prices, which left the nation's smokers fuming. The vendors claim that there is an acute shortage in cigarettes because the company has stopped providing them with their daily quotas in order to sell the products at the “new prices”. When the company decided to hike up cigarette prices, smokers labelled the move a “new disaster” that hit their finances. The company, meanwhile, claims that the increase would add a total sum of LE1.2 billion to the Government's semi-empty coffers after the January 25 revolution. Kiosk owners and tobacconists started selling a Cleopatra box of 20 cigarettes for LE5.5 instead of LE5.00. The price increase for other popular or foreign brands varied from 25 piasters to LE1. "It is the company and not retailers which is behind the shortage," owner of a Cairo-based kiosk Amm Farghali said. "It is a mad rise in prices. Every day, after the revolution the Egyptians wake to find a new price rise, even in cigarette prices," Sayyed Mohamed, a retired employee who has been smoking for more than 40 years, complained. "If the Government wants the people to quit the habit by making it more expensive to smoke, it is obviously a bad idea," said Hala Ragheb, a female schoolteacher living in the Cairo working class suburb of Hadayek el-Kobba. Hala, who saw the decision as unfair and pledged to stage a symbolic rally against it, said that smoking cigarettes was part of the Egyptian culture. She added that increasing the cigarette prices annoyed smokers and would force them towards firing up a shisha, as the water pipe is known here. Hala, who used to smoke a foreign brand of cigarette, said that she might shift to shisha because the decision did not include the maassel, tobacco soaked in a mix of molasses and dried fruit. "Definitely, I may buy a small shisha and smoke it at home rather than paying more money for cigarettes," she said. Adel Mahmoud, a taxi driver who sees smoking as relief from the daily grind, said he was angry when he first heard about the decision, which would add an extra financial burden to his household budget. "Nowadays, the Government considers smoking cigarettes a luxury and wants the smokers to pay for it. It is another financial burden," he said. The consumption of tobacco, alcohol and drugs has soared in Egypt during the past three months because of anxiety and political turmoil that gripped the country after the January 25 revolution, a recent study showed. An average smoker consumes an estimated 2,500 cigarettes a year, according to the study conducted by the governmental Assiut Centre for Environmental Studies. More than half of Egyptian males smoke a total 20 million cigarettes a day. Last year, the Health Ministry said that Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, has more than 14 million smokers �" which corresponds roughly to the combined populations of Jordan, Lebanon and Israel. It said Egyptians spent about LE5 billion a year on tobacco, or almost 22 per cent of the average income on a per capita basis.
