Beijing to raise tobacco tax to cut smoking

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-06-03

Activists take part in an anti-smoking campaign in Chongqing, May 30.
(File photo/CNS)

Beijing is hoping to persuade more smokers by increasing the national tobacco tax and will likely follow recommendations set by the World Health Organization, which says the excise tax on tobacco should be at least 70% of the retail price, reports the Chinese-language Beijing News.

Cui Li, deputy director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, confirmed the central government is indeed planning to introduce measures, which will include increasing the tobacco tax, in an attempt to prevent the nation's younger generation from becoming smokers.

Figures from the commission showed that there are approximately 300 million smokers in China, and approximately 740 million non-smokers are at risk from second-hand smoke. Some 1.2 million to 1.4 million people die of smoking-related diseases every year in the country.

Echoing Cui, Yang Gonghuan, a professor at Peking Union Medical College, said increasing the tobacco tax is the easiest and most efficient way to curb tobacco consumption. While most Chinese smokers are not suffering from any financial problems, increasing the tax will have an effect on getting them to cut back on the habit, he said.

However, Li Baojiang, director of the Tobacco Business Research Institute's Policy Research Department, said that the policy will encourage more tobacco smuggling and result in more counterfeit cigarette products that will be even more harmful to smokers' health.