Brief: Russia's finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, has urged people to smoke and drink more because higher consumption of these products lifts tax revenues for spending on social services, according to a New Age story out of Bangladesh quoting the Interfax news agency.
Russia's finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, has urged people to smoke and drink more because higher consumption of these products lifts tax revenues for spending on social services, according to a New Age story out of Bangladesh quoting the Interfax news agency.
People should understand that those who drank and those who smoked were doing more to help the state, Kudrin said, as the government announced plans to raise excise duty on alcohol and cigarettes.
Kudrin's remarks seem to run counter to official policy that recently has seen the imposition of several initiatives aimed at reducing the consumption of alcohol.
Alcohol and cigarette consumption is already high in Russia, where 65 per cent of men smoke and the average Russian consumes 18 liters of alcoholic beverages a year.
Russian duties on cigarettes are considered to be low, and most brands retail for about $1.30 a pack. But the finance ministry in June announced plans to more than double excise duty on cigarettes during the next three years from 250 roubles per 1,000 filtered cigarettes to 590 roubles in 2013.
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