Mighty Corporation or Mighty Corp, the Philippines' local manufacturer of low-cost cigarettes announced that it will double its local tobacco purchases to 10 Million kilograms.
Mighty Corp executive vice president Oscar Barrientos said in an official letter sent to the National Tobacco Administration office that it would buy tobacco from local farmers 100 percent more than the five million kilograms Mighty Corporation bought in 2013.
“This is to assure our tobacco farmers of our willingness to help in response to the published report of the market leader in the tobacco industry to lessen production this year,” Barrientos, a retired regional trial court judge, said in a statement.
The letter of intent, in effect, debunked critics’ allegations that Mighty Corporation has been importing raw materials from foreign countries at low prices and is no longer buying tobacco from local farmers.
Barrientos said the critics had been resorting to a disinformation campaign using convoluted data in an effort to undermine Mighty Corp's tremendous increase of its market shares.
Mighty Corporation's market shares surged to almost 20 percent of the low-priced cigarette brands last year from in 2012, resulting in the payment P8.2 billion in excise taxes.
Barrientos said the company’s market shares shot up after the government effectively implemented the new Sin Tax Law, that leveled the playing field in the multi-billion peso tobacco industry which was controlled then by Philip Morris and Fortune Tobacco.
The new law that took 14 years to pass and certified as urgent by the Philippine President has caused a tremendous migration of smokers from the expensive premium and sub-premium brands to low-priced cigarettes.
It also resulted in some smokers, because of economic reason, to simply quit the vice and thus validated health authorities’ estimate that the sin tax law would result in the decrease of the number of smokers in the country.
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