Islamabad, December 13, 2025 — Pakistan is grappling with a growing challenge of illicit trade in the tobacco sector, which continues to undermine the national economy and cause heavy losses to the public exchequer. The unchecked movement, storage, and use of non-duty-paid unmanufactured tobacco— the primary raw material for cigarette production— has emerged as a major source of large-scale evasion of Federal Excise Duty (FED) and other applicable taxes.