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Head of Cor­po­rate and Reg­u­la­to­ry Af­fairs (CO­RA) Caribbean at the West In­di­an To­bac­co Co Ltd (Wit­co), Ger­von Abra­ham, has raised con­cerns over Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent ex­cise in­creas­es, warn­ing that lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers could be dis­ad­van­taged if im­port du­ties are not ad­just­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.

Dur­ing Mon­day’s Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo an­nounced steep cus­toms du­ty hikes on al­co­hol and to­bac­co prod­ucts, which he said are ex­pect­ed to ac­count for 80 per cent of pro­ject­ed rev­enue growth in the com­ing fis­cal year.

Un­der the new rates, du­ties on rum and spir­its will rise from $79.25 to $158.50 per cent of al­co­hol con­tent; beer from $5.14 to $10.28 by grav­i­ty; and cig­a­rettes from $5.26 to $10.52 per pack of 20. These in­creas­es take im­me­di­ate ef­fect.