German Cigarette Sales Fall

Cigarette sales in Germany fell by 15.8 percent to a total 111.7 billion cigarettes in 2004, largely as a result of the higher price of tobacco, data published by the federal statistics office, Destatis, showed on Monday. The cigarettes had a taxable sale value of €20 billion ($26 billion), down 5.3 percent from the figure for 2003, Destatis said in a statement. By contrast, the volume of tobacco sold for own-rolled cigarettes rose sharply by 30.4 percent to 24,258 tons, the statisticians calculated. The price of a packet of cigarettes was increased twice last year, by €1.2 each time to help finance the reform of the health insurance system.