[?]Iji's Cigaretie

[?]Dustry

[?]Aises Questions

|EMONSTRATING the policy of

" “granting reasonable fiscal con isions to encourage new investment the Colony and so broaden the sis of the economy”, Fiji’s Legisla e Council last month passed a Bill sating the machinery for collecting ;ise duties on specified goods manu stured and consumed in the Colony. \t the moment the “specified ids” comprise cigarettes to be tde at a factory to be established Fiji by the British Tobacco Co. ustralia) Ltd. rhe excise duty is to be 3d for i, compared with the customs ty of 7sd on imported cigarettes, h 1954 Fiji’s imports of 17,791 of cigarettes and 12,409 lb of nufactured tobacco yielded about •0,000 in customs duty, and it has ;n unofficially estimated that an proximate equivalent in locally mufactured cigarettes would Id about £l5O 000 in excise duties.

Critics of the new scheme say it an annual revenue drop of ne £200,000 is too much to pay an industry that may be jected to employ only several sen persons. during the Legislative Council late, the Acting Financial sretary (Mr. R. M. Major) said i Government realised that the erests of importers might be naged for a time, and that the vernment revenues would suffer, : it was hoped that these results uld be only temporary.

Ar. Major said that two urances had been given during i negotiations—first, that the npany would direct its energies .sards extending the Colony’s rket for cigarettes: and ondly, that it would take active ps to develop Fiji’s tobacco :ustry.

Xitside the Council, discussion > centred mainly on the :gestion that, until the return m excise duties equals the toms duties imposed on imported arettes, the industry will be bsidised” to the extent of the 5 in customs duty, t has been claimed that, allowing the higher cost of local manu ture, it should be possible— ause of the favourable excise e —to produce cigarettes at about a packet retail, compared with h for imported cigarettes. (Duty imported manufactured tobacco 5/6 on a 2 oz tin, which is retailed about 4/5). dl this, the critics maintain, ans that the local lower-priced arettes will probably push