A tobacco company is the first to raise prices following last week’s emergency budget by a heart stopping 45 per cent.

Last week the Turkish Government announced increases in the special consumption tax on tobacco and other products.

The tax on tobacco went up 6 percent.

In our article “Booze, Tobacco , Mobile Phone and Car Tax all up In Suprise Turkish Mid Year Budget Hike“ we said that:

“smokers can expect prices to rise by more on their packet of twenty as manufacturers use the tax rises as an excuse to hide their own price rises.”

That expectation has come true according to a report in the Turkish Daily News who have reported that one manufacturer will raise prices by a massive 45 per cent.

Tobacco producer Phiilip Morris, purveyors of popular brands such as Marlboro, Parliament, L&M, Muratti, Lark, Bond Street, Chesterfield, Lider, plans to increase the price of a standard packet of 20 from 4.50 TL to 6.50TL and it's premium brands such as Marlboro to 9TL.

Expect other manufacturers to follow suit.

It has also come to light that beer prices will also increase. The tax on a litre of beer - that’s TWO standard bottles - has gone up from 0.44 TL to 0.53 TL +20%. Again expect the manuafacturers to follow with their own increases.