The Fidesz government wants to put a middleman in place with a view to nationalising the wholesale trade of tobacco, he added.

Szigetvári insisted that it had become apparent with the publication of balance sheets at the end of May that the reorganisation of state concessions for tobacconist retailers had been a “failure”.

Lots of retailers had made losses and were struggling with serious liquidity problems, he insisted.

It is also clear, he added, that the government’s restructuring of the sector had produced a “shockingly large” loss in tax revenues, in the tens of billions of forints, due to an ever bigger black market derived from cigarette smuggling.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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