Author: Staff Writer

Imperial Tobacco’s subsidiary in Macedonia has won a national workplace health and safety award for the second year in a row.

Imperial Tobacco TKS at Skopje was recognized by the Macedonian Association for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) for demonstrating best practices.

“This award comes as we mark almost four years without any lost time accidents, and we are delighted to be recognized as a leading company in this field,” said Tanya Mizovska, OHS coordinator for Macedonia, who attended the association’s fifth annual awards held last week to coincide with World Health and Safety at Work Day.

“We have won this award as a result of the dedication of all our people to health and safety in the workplace.”

Surya Nepal has started production at its new cigarette plant at Seratar in the district of Tanahun, according to a story in Republica.

The company has invested NPR4.5 billion in the factory, which employs about 200 people and is set on 145 ropani (7.3 ha).

Currently, the factory is running 16 hours a day in two shifts, but the plan is to operate it around the clock. “We can produce 10 million sticks of cigarettes in a day by operating the factory for 16 hours,” said Ravi KC, corporate vice president of Surya Nepal.

The company had been producing cigarettes from its plant in Simara for the past 22 years, but the new plant is the first to be built in the hilly regions.

Local industrialists say the opening of such a big factory in western Nepal will encourage other investors to open factories in Pokhara and surrounding areas.

Some of Zimbabwe’s flue-cured tobacco growers are diverting their crops to contract floors so as to earn higher prices than those being offered over the auction floors, according to a story in the Zimbabwe Herald.

Officially, contract buyers purchase tobacco only from contracted growers, but some farmers not under contract are said to be using contracted growers’ registration numbers to sell their crops on the contract floors.

The Herald story said that most of the growers involved in this practice were aware that it was illegal, but said they had no choice since buyers were offering unattractive prices at the auction floors.

A Karoi farmer was quoted as saying that she had sold part of her crop over the auction floors but had been disheartened by the prices.

“Tobacco production is my mainstay,” she said.

“I have to go back to the fields, and with the prices being offered at auction floors, I will never be able to finance my crop. I am selling the remaining tobacco through the contract floors.”

The average price paid at the contract floors stands at $3.13 per kg, 20.8 percent higher than the average price at auction, $2.59 per kg.

Flue-cured tobacco prices have been soaring at auctions underway in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, according to a story in the most recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

Northern black soils tobaccos were said to have touched a new high of INR168 per kg at the Thorredu auction platform.

And Northern light soil tobacco peaked at INR176 per kg at the West Godavari platform.

Seventy days into the selling season, 81.08 million kg of tobacco had been sold for an average price of INR121 per kg.

Fifty-seven percent of the tobacco sold has comprised bright grades.

Meanwhile, the Tobacco Board of India is proposing to employ in the future a GPS (global positioning system) to monitor remotely the condition of crops and to help with early intervention in the fields.

The board is preparing also to webcast the proceedings at all of the Andhra and Karnataka auction platforms so as to provide  efficient monitoring.

Regional tobacco control groups have called for higher cigarette taxation among Asean (Association of Southeast Asia Nations) countries and a crackdown on the illicit trade so as to reduce consumption, according to a story in the Bangkok Post.

The call came during the Tobacco Taxation and Illicit Trade workshop held at the World Health Organization’s Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila last week.

“Tobacco taxation hasn’t yet been fully implemented in Asean countries,” Bungon Ritthiphakdee, director for the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (Seatca), was quoted as saying.

“Cigarette prices are still affordable in most countries. Hence, consumption is increasing in the region.”

A Seatca survey found that about 9.25 billion cigarettes were smoked daily in Asean countries.

Philip Morris International has filed a petition in the Sindh High Court, Pakistan, challenging a ban on tobacco product advertisements and promotions due to come into force at the end of this month, according to local news reports.

One report in the Business Recorder, while not mentioning PMI by name, said the petition had described the ban on tobacco product advertising and promotions, put in place by the Ministry of National Health, Services, Regulations and Co-ordination, as irrational, unduly harsh and extremely unreasonable.

Tobacco control groups are said to be rallying around the government.

The case is due to be heard at Karachi on May 28.

The shisha café culture may exacerbate the spread of the coronavirus in Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries, according to an Arab News story quoting a senior physiology professor at King Saud University (KSU).

Sultan Ayoub Meo, professor and consultant at KSU’s King Khalid University Hospital, said shisha smokers, along with their friends and relatives, ran a high risk of transmission of this deadly respiratory disease.

Meo, who is currently supervising a research project on the hazards of shisha smoking, said shisha smoking sometimes involved sharing, over a lengthy period, a water pipe that might contain infected saliva.

“The greater the exposure in terms of duration and amount smoked, the greater the risk of getting MERS,” he said.

MERS, or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, is a viral respiratory illness first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and caused by a coronavirus called MERS-CoV.

Two hundred and thirty-nine people were fined for smoking at bus stops in a recent crackdown conducted by the Malaysia’s health ministry, according to a story in The Star.

Another 17 were said to have been caught smoking inside buses and, though the story didn’t mention it, presumably fined.

“The operation was conducted in 2,317 public vehicles and 251 public transportation terminals,” said health ministry Director-general Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Smokers were caught also at taxi stands, train stations and ferry terminals, and on jetties and ferries.

One hundred and ninety-nine fines were issued to the owners of public vehicles for failing to display “no smoking” signs in their vehicles or failing to display the correct signs.

And eight people were fined for possessing illicit cigarettes.

Those who fail to pay their fines in the stipulated time are liable to be taken to court where they could risk maximum fines of MYR10,000 or even two years in prison.

Despite the introduction of the “sin tax law” last year, the prices of cigarettes in the Philippines continue to rank among the lowest in the world, according to a story in the Sun Star quoting the results of a study.

The so-called sin tax law (Republic Act 10351) was introduced in January 2013.

At US$0.58 a pack, popular cigarette brands in Cambodia and the Philippines had the lowest prices in the world, said the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), citing a recent study by the World Health Organization’s regional office for the Western Pacific.

The WHO and SEATCA said that imposing higher taxes on tobacco products was among the most cost-effective means of reducing tobacco use and the consequent damage to health and economic development.

Nevertheless, SEATCA recognized the efforts of the Philippines in making cigarettes more inaccessible in the country with the passage of Republic Act 10351.