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Lifting the Iranian sanctions opens up the second largest market and largest middle class in the Middle East. Wall Street's probably licking their chops at getting into a market that has been stifled for years and years.
If you like trade and/or a piece of your salary/wages come from trade... thank Obama for your increased income or increased job security.
Iran Nuclear Deal: Big Tobacco Sees Opportunity For Cigarette Market Amid Lagging Revenues Elsewhere
By Elizabeth Whitman
10/27/15
It’s not just Big Macs, Frappucinos, iPads and other stereotypical Western commercial products that could soon trickle legally into Iran. If sanctions are lifted, Tehranis might eventually have access to legal Marlboros and other Western cigarette brands that are otherwise smuggled into the country.
After the signing of a nuclear accord in July, international sanctions on Iran could be repealed as early as next year, and tobacco companies are jostling for their share in a major untapped market in the Middle East. For the past several years, cigarette sales in developed countries have lagged, spurring tobacco companies to pivot toward emerging markets. The addition of Iran could be a significant boon for these companies – depending on which ones secure a stronger foothold first.
"What it really comes down to is a battle over market share," Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, who founded the Virginia-based Iran Tobacco Research Group and has published extensively on the political economy of smoking and the cigarette trade in Iran, said. "There’s definitely interest on the part of the traditional major global players in tobacco...in getting back into Iran in a serious way."
The World Bank classifies Iran as an “upper middle-income” country, and its 80 million people make it the second-largest country in the Middle East by population, after Egypt. By some estimates, Iranians spend $3.3 billion on and smoke about 52.6 billion cigarettes every year. The number of smokers is rising, too, from 7.65 percent of the population in 2010 to 8.55 percent in 2014, according to a report published in August by Euromonitor International, a business intelligence research group based in London. Others have suggested that smoking rates are substantially higher. According to Kenneth Shea, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, about 15 percent of Iranians smoke, and "that number has generally edged higher over the years," he said. Batmanghelidj, meanwhile, estimated that smoking rates in Iran could exceed 20 percent.
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Lifting the Iranian sanctions opens up the second largest market and largest middle class in the Middle East. Wall Street's probably licking their chops at getting into a market that has been stifled for years and years.
If you like trade and/or a piece of your salary/wages come from trade... thank Obama for your increased income or increased job security.
Iran Nuclear Deal: Big Tobacco Sees Opportunity For Cigarette Market Amid Lagging Revenues Elsewhere
By Elizabeth Whitman
10/27/15
It’s not just Big Macs, Frappucinos, iPads and other stereotypical Western commercial products that could soon trickle legally into Iran. If sanctions are lifted, Tehranis might eventually have access to legal Marlboros and other Western cigarette brands that are otherwise smuggled into the country.
After the signing of a nuclear accord in July, international sanctions on Iran could be repealed as early as next year, and tobacco companies are jostling for their share in a major untapped market in the Middle East. For the past several years, cigarette sales in developed countries have lagged, spurring tobacco companies to pivot toward emerging markets. The addition of Iran could be a significant boon for these companies – depending on which ones secure a stronger foothold first.
"What it really comes down to is a battle over market share," Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, who founded the Virginia-based Iran Tobacco Research Group and has published extensively on the political economy of smoking and the cigarette trade in Iran, said. "There’s definitely interest on the part of the traditional major global players in tobacco...in getting back into Iran in a serious way."
The World Bank classifies Iran as an “upper middle-income” country, and its 80 million people make it the second-largest country in the Middle East by population, after Egypt. By some estimates, Iranians spend $3.3 billion on and smoke about 52.6 billion cigarettes every year. The number of smokers is rising, too, from 7.65 percent of the population in 2010 to 8.55 percent in 2014, according to a report published in August by Euromonitor International, a business intelligence research group based in London. Others have suggested that smoking rates are substantially higher. According to Kenneth Shea, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, about 15 percent of Iranians smoke, and "that number has generally edged higher over the years," he said. Batmanghelidj, meanwhile, estimated that smoking rates in Iran could exceed 20 percent.
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