Country Overview
Key Facts
Number of Employees: Approximately 1,300
Main Brands:
Chesterfield, Bond Street, Marlboro, L&M, Parliament
Welcome to Philip Morris Ukraine (PMU). In 1994, Philip Morris International (PMI) acquired a majority share of the JSC Kharkiv tobacco factory. In 1996 the factory started manufacturing the first international PMI brands in the Ukraine, Chesterfield and Bond Street. In 2000, the factory began producing Marlboro.
Today we are the leading tobacco company in the Ukraine and employ over 1,300 people. We have a headquarters in Kyiv, nine regional offices and our new state-of-the art manufacturing facility in Kharkiv was inaugurated in 2006.
We manufacture numerous brands for the domestic market and for export, including Chesterfield, Bond Street, Marlboro, L&M, and Parliament.
We support initiatives to prevent smoking among minors and have an active charitable contributions focused on helping Ukraine’s most disadvantaged social groups. This includes sponsoring initiatives to help disabled children, pensioners, orphans and veterans.
Smoking and Health
Tobacco products, including cigarettes, are dangerous and addictive. There is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.
Addiction
All tobacco products are addictive. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so.
Secondhand Smoke
Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease. We believe the public health conclusions on secondhand smoke are sufficient to support smoking restrictions in public places.
Effective Regulation
Philip Morris International (PMI) supports comprehensive regulation of tobacco products based on the principle of harm reduction.
To be effective, tobacco regulatory policy must be evidence-based, apply to all tobacco products, and should take into account the views of all legitimate stakeholders including public health authorities, government finance authorities, tobacco manufacturers, and other members of the tobacco supply chain. Regulatory policy must consider the potential to trigger adverse consequences which undermine public health objectives, such as increasing the demand for illicit cigarettes. While we support comprehensive, effective tobacco regulation, we do not support regulation that prevents adults from buying and using tobacco products or that imposes unnecessary impediments to the operation of the legitimate tobacco market. In that regard, we oppose measures such as plain packaging, point of sale display bans, total bans on communications to adult consumers, and bans on the use of all ingredients in tobacco products.