The Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee discussed the Draft Law on Tobacco Control. The current Law prohibits tobacco sales as of December 31, 2022, without standardized packaging.
As one of the initiators of the Draft, Isko Daseni elucidated, prior to the developments in Ukraine, the tobacco products to be exported to Georgia have been produced mostly in the Ukrainian factories but due to the aggression against Ukraine, the manufacture has been terminated from the very first days of the conflict, entailing the necessity to diversify the process to various countries to satisfy the demand of the Georgian market.
“Deriving from the current situation, the companies operating in the tobacco industry have to re-adjust the packaging processes from one to several factories, which constitutes and protracted and complex process, putting the terms stipulated in the legislation under doubt”, - he stated.
Hence, the regulations on the sale and deployment of tobacco in standardized packaging, as well as the development terms for the normative acts have been extended to December 31, 2024.
The Draft is initiated by MPs David Songulashvili, Gocha Enukidze, Gela Samkharauli and Isko Daseni.
