Indonesia urged to apply hefty tobacco taxes – especially to kreteks

A planned 8.5 per cent increase in Indonesia’s tobacco excise this month would neither push up the price of cigarettes significantly nor reduce the number of cigarette smokers in the country, according to a story in the Jakarta Post.

Abdillah Ahsan, a researcher with the University of Indonesia’s demographic center (LDUI), said the number of cigarette smokers in Indonesia would continue to grow because of the very low prices of cigarettes.

The low prices of cigarettes attracted people to take up the habit and ensured that these people continued to smoke.
“Cigarettes should be taxed highly so that cigarette consumption decreases,” he told a press conference held jointly by the LDUI and the Southeast Asia Initiative on Tobacco Tax, Indonesia.

Abdillah added that the government needed to impose hefty taxes, particularly on two market-dominant cigarette products, the machine-made kretek and the hand-made kretek.