‘Introducing the Unified State Information System (aka EGAIS) on tobacco market is not good, as the system has not been properly tested in terms of even alcohol market yet,’ said Monetka Trade Center manager Elena Mursina.

‘The Unified State Information System will probably be less painful for the tobacco market compared with the alcohol one, but I don’t believe this will do the market any good,’ she observed.

‘I hope that this will not lead to soaring prices, since this is supposed to be the producer who will cover the equipment and system installation expenses, and not the consumer,’ Ms Mursina said.

The Russian Federation State Duma Economic Policy Committee supported the proposal of Atlas Scientific and Technical Center concerning the development of special software aimed at unified systematic monitoring of tobacco industry by the state.

Atlas suggests putting barcode tags on all tobacco excise duty stamps in order to keep track of their whereabouts and store the information in a single database. It is not clear yet when such a system is going to be introduced.