Australian smokers will be forced to patronise cheap cigars from China and Indonesia if the federal government would not allow deadline extension of the plain packaging measures for tobacco products in the country, which takes effect on July next year.

Meeting the July 1 deadline, according to British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) chief executive David Crow, is next to impossible, who also warned on Thursday that Aussie smokers will be left to buy illegal cigarettes that could inundate the local market once a supply shortage ensues.

The looming shortage, Crow told The Australian, will be the immediate result of adjustments that need to be implemented on production facilities, with the tobacco executive adding that "if we're asked to change some of the specifications, it's a really simple problem ... we'll be out of stock."

Testifying before the lower house health committee, Crow said that producing cigarettes in new olive-green packs will necessitate more time and additional investments for tobacco manufacturers.

BATA estimates that it will need two more years and will have to spend millions of dollars in fresh machineries in order to comply with the new legislation, which most likely would lead to supply shortage.

"As soon as we're out of stock, the only people who stock the industry are . . . guys out of Indonesia, out of China. They currently stock 16 per cent and they'll flood the market with cheap cigarettes," Crow told The Australian.

Pretty much, the same period is what the industry will need to follow the new rules, Crow reiterated, but Health Department officials maintained that BATA may overshooting its estimates and insisted that the deadline next year is both realistic and workable.

Health Department assistant secretary Simon Cotterell declared "we have made manufacturers very aware of the specifications of this packaging in the draft legislation," as quoted on Thursday by The Australian.

On the tobacco industry's part, Crow claimed that the federal government failed to hold sufficient discussions with key players and such scenario pushed cigarette manufacturers to clarify their positions by running ads that counter the new federal initiatives against smoking.