TEHRAN -- The chief manager of the Iran Tobacco Company said that according to the statistics released by the health ministry, 30 to 35 billion cigarettes are smuggled into the country every year. Abbas Khajehpiri, in an interview with IRNA on Sunday, said that the monetary value of these smuggled cigarettes is estimated to be one billion dollars. According to Khajehpiri, 15 billion cigarettes are produced locally, bringing in Rls.900 billion in revenue into the country. He said that annual cigarette consumption is 45 to 50 billion cigarettes. Speaking about cigarette smuggling, which is the main problem of the tobacco industry, Khajehpiri said: "The Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) should have taken proper measures to fight against cigarette smuggling but, unfortunately, they have not done this yet because of the incorrect policies which have been adopted by the officials." Khajehpiri added that the rise in smuggling has reduced the incentive to import cigarettes legally, and that over the past three years, despite the Majlis having granted permission to import 50 billion cigarettes, only 50 million cigarettes have been imported. "In order to fight smuggling, we have decided to increase the quality of the tobacco and over the past two months we have produced and marketed high quality cigarettes," Khajehpiri said.