The Indonesian government is set to bring in a number of initiatives that are in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), but it is still debating whether or not to ratify the treaty, according to a story in The Jakarta Post.
Speaking after a meeting on the FCTC yesterday, Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung said the government would introduce a number of measures to curb the health impacts of smoking, including the imposition of no-smoking areas, import cuts and excise rate increases.
Earlier, President Joko ‘Jokowi Widodo acknowledged that Indonesia was the only country in Asia that had not ratified the treaty.
The president said the Indonesian government was willing to ratify the FCTC, but that it wanted to study the matter deeply first. It did not want to ratify it simply because other countries had done so. According to the WHO, 180 countries, representing 90 percent of the world’s population, had ratified the FCTC as of July 2013.
He said Indonesia had to consider tobacco farmers and workers who depended on the industry for their livelihoods.
But at the same time it had to look at the national interest, especially in relation to citizens affected by health-related problems and for the future of younger generations.