Welcome to a special edition of The Spectator Podcast. I'm Fraser Nelson. Philip Morris International is one of the world's most interesting and controversial companies. They're the firm behind Marlborough cigarettes. And recently, they announced they were going to exit the business of making cigarettes and enter what they describe as a smoke-free world.

But what pace are they moving at and what are the risks that they're now taking on?

To what extent should campaigners start to see them as a solution rather than the continuing problem?

And to what extent is this just a ruse for shareholders

rather than a genuine change of heart? Yatsk Olzak, Chief Executive of Philip Morris, joins me now.

Now Yatzek, we should say from the offset that Philip Morris has sponsored this podcast

and in return, I can ask you anything I want. Is that a fair summary?

Yes. Okay. Absolutely fair.

So I suppose my first question is that you are a cigarette company. Fundamentally you say your

mission is to unsmoke the world, but can a cigarette company really be a force for good?

Yeah, we are every day less and less of a cigarette company really be a force for good? Yeah, we are every day less and less of a cigarette company.

Okay, and the objective is to essentially put the cigarettes behind us as quickly as this is possible.

I think over the last seven years we demonstrating

every week, every month that the objective is not just the pure inspirational

objective, but it's something which can be delivered. And actually it's good for, you know,

for a consumers, for a smokers, for a public at large,

and also good for the company, for company investors.

So what sort of time frame are you talking about?

The initial milestones, which we set for ourselves, is that by 2025 we will achieve

about the 50% of the revenue is coming from a

smoke of products. Seems that we are on a good track to pass that so achieve that first

milestone. My question is what is beyond the 50% is the 75% when ultimately can drive it 100%.

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