One in five cigarettes smoked is smuggled

Smuggled cigarettes account for 21.3 percent of Lithuania's tobacco product market, up by two percentage points compared with a year ago, according to the latest empty pack survey by Nielsen.

The size of the illicit tobacco market had more than halved since 2010, but started growing again in 2016 to pass the 20 percent market-share mark in the fourth quarter of 2019, the National Association of Tobacco Producers said.

As much as 76.5 percent of all illicit cigarettes and 16.3 percent of all cigarettes smoked in Lithuania came from neighboring Belarus,

The illicit tobacco market accounted for 16.8 percent in Latvia and for 9.9 percent in Estonia in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the association.