‘Industry Jobs Threatened’
Taking the hand-rolled segment into account, the total Indonesian duty-paid market surpassed that of Russia in 2014.
Tobacco associations in Indonesia have cautioned that the health ministry’s plan to increase the size of mandatory health warnings to 90 percent of a cigarette pack will adversely affect workers throughout the supply chain, reports Tempo.
“For the past five years, there have been more than 90,000 factory workers who were laid off,” said Muhaimin Moeftie, chairman of the Indonesian Light Cigarette Producers Association.
Between 2007 and 2019, the number of tobacco producers in Indonesia declined from 4,000 to 700, according to Moeftie, whose concerns where echoed by the Indonesian Cigarette Industry Community Forums and Cigarette Producers Association.
The associations said that increasing the size of the warning on a cigarette pack would threaten the sustainability of the industry and the income of 6 million people.
