BERLIN, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Seventy-five billion cigarettes were smoked -- and taxed -- in Germany in 2019, an increase of 0.3 percent compared to the previous year, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Wednesday.
In total, the taxes paid on tobacco products in Germany totaled 27.4 billion euros (30.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019, four percent more than in 2018, according to Destatis.
"While cigarette sales increased only slightly, the strong upward trend in sales of pipe tobacco continued," Destatis noted.
The quantity of pipe tobacco taxed -- which included waterpipe tobacco and tobacco products for electric tobacco-heating devices -- increased by 24.5 percent year-on-year, according to Destatis.
In December 2019, the German government agreed to further reduce tobacco products advertising after years of debate and is planning to ban most cinema and outdoor advertising of tobacco products.
"Tobacco is harmful to health, thousands of people die every year as a result of smoking," said German Minister of Food and Agriculture Julia Kloeckner after the government's decision in December. "And yet, we are still the last state in the European Union (EU) to allow outdoor tobacco advertising."
Tobacco advertising has been banned on radio and television in Germany since 1975. Further restrictions on tobacco advertising in cinemas as well as larger warnings on cigarette packages were added in 2003, and a ban on tobacco ads in newspapers and magazines as well as on the internet followed in 2007.
Since 2016, the EU's Tobacco Products Directive requires that cigarette packages carry combined picture and text warnings in all member countries. The warnings should cover at least 65 percent of the front and back of packages.
"Whether traditional or electronic cigarettes, products containing nicotine should not be allowed to be advertised, neither in cinemas nor on posters," Kloeckner said.
