The Government has bowed to pressure from tobacco companies and their packaging suppliers and extended the deadline to put pack marks on cigarette packets, thus safeguarding hundreds of printing jobs this year.
In a bid to reduce cigarette smuggling and tobacco industry duty avoidance, HM Customs & Excise had proposed that from April 2001, every packet of cigarettes and tobacco sold in the UK must bear a pack mark denoting payment of duty.
But the packaging suppliers - most notably Field, Lawson Mardon, Smurfit, and Parkside Flexible Packaging - complained that if tobacco companies were forced to sell off their existing stockpiles of unmarked packs before April 2001, there would be a huge slump in cigarette production and packaging orders this year. Hundreds of packaging industry jobs would be lost.
Instead, the packaging printers requested that the law be phased in gradually.
Now C&E has agreed to compromise, and extended the deadline for packs to bear pack marks, until July 2001. Also, an interim pack-mark, a tear-strip on the cellophane which can be applied to packs already printed, can be used until the end of September 2001.
BPIF corporate affairs director Mike Hopkins welcomed the decision, saying, "It looks like they have satisfied most of what we wanted. Its a compromise which gives us time to adapt."
However, he said there was still concern over who would pick up the estimated 8m tab for redesigning the packaging to incorporate the pack marks.
"Obviously we hope the tobacco companies wont be looking for someone to share that cost. A share of 8m could be an awful lot to a packaging converter."