KARACHI - Pakistan remains one of the world’s leading cigarette smoking country and Pakistanis spent around Rs200 billion ($2.25 billion) on smoking in fiscal 2011 despite anti-smoking campaign by the government.The cigarette production figures provided by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in its latest report also showed the number of cigarettes produced in 2011 increased over the sales and production of last fiscal year. Although the official figures do not show complete production figures because a large number of unregistered factories across the country were manufacturing cheaper cigarettes to cater to the need of low-income group smokers who can’t afford branded or imported cigarettes. Imported branded cigarette prices are higher by 100 to 200 per cent as compared to locally-made ones and are mostly consumed by affluent people living in big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. According to the central bank 54.4 billion cigarettes were produced from January to October 2011, while the number was 65.40 billion during the 2010-11 financial year.
