Author: Taco Tuinstra

Taiwan Mulls Ban on Flavor Chemicals

Photo: Hertz Flavors
The Ministry of Health and Welfare wants to ban 27 types of chemicals from being used in tobacco products, vapes and heat-not-burn devices, reports The Taipei Times.
The list includes vanillin, maltol and heliotropin among other chemical compounds commonly used as additives in flavored tobacco products. Without these substances, manufacturers would be unable to produce popular flavors such as caramel, butter, almond, rose, coconut, raspberry, vanilla and cheese,
The new proposal would enable the ministry to remove more than half of flavored tobacco products from the market, according to Lo Su-ying, who heads the Health Promotion Agency’s Tobacco Control Division.
Under the draft rule, manufacturers and importers of products containing the banned substances would risk fines of between NTD1 million ($30,846) and NTD5 million, while sellers would incur penalties of between NTD10,000 and NTD50,000.
The government will subject the proposal to a 60-day public consultation.
August 9, 2024
Activists Decry Kiwi Disposables Ban

Photo: YarikL
Vaping activists have expressed concern about New Zealand’s decision to ban disposable e-cigarettes.
The New Zealand Ministry of Health announced the ban with the intention of reducing adolescent vaping. The new regulations prohibit the manufacture and sale of all non-rechargeable and non-refillable vapes, including single-use containers such as pre-filled tanks, pods and cartridges.
The World Vapers Alliance (WVA) warned that the ban could undermine New Zealand’s progress in reducing smoking rates.
“Preventing teenagers from using nicotine products is essential, and strict age regulations should be enforced to achieve this goal,” said WVA Policy Manager Alberto Gómez Hernández in a statement.
“However, banning disposable vapes and various pod systems for adult consumers will have negative public health implications and jeopardize the progress towards a smoke-free society achieved in the last decade. This approach fails to recognize the vital role disposable vaping products play in helping smokers transition away from cigarettes.”
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) expressed similar reservations. “We understand and support the government’s intent to curb youth vaping,” said CAPHRA Executive Coordinator Nancy Loucas.
“However, the proposed ban on disposable vaping products, including prefilled tanks, pods and cartridges, will create substantial barriers for adults who smoke and older vapers. Many of these individuals rely on simpler, disposable products due to difficulties with dexterity and the complexities of refillable devices. This ban could force them back to smoking cigarettes, which is counterproductive to the Smokefree 2025 goal.”
August 9, 2024
Strong Start for Universal in Fiscal 2025

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
Universal Corp. reported net revenue of $597.1 million for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2025, up by approximately 15 percent for both its tobacco and ingredients operations segments. Operating income was $17.2 million, up 56 percent compared to the same quarter last fiscal year.
The revenue increase in the tobacco operations segment was driven by higher sales volumes and prices. “Coming out of an exceptional fiscal year 2024, we benefited from continued strong demand from our tobacco customers,” said Universal chairman, President and CEO George C. Freeman III in a statement.
“We believe this demand will continue to support solid results for the segment for fiscal year 2025. Our strategic decisions to accelerate tobacco crop purchasing allowed us to secure our contracted tobacco in certain dynamic markets, which has positioned us well to meet customer demand. As in previous fiscal years, we expect that tobacco shipment timing and related revenue recognition will be more heavily weighted toward the second half of our fiscal year 2025.
“Our uncommitted tobacco inventory levels at June 30, 2024, remained low at about 13 percent, and we believe that global leaf tobacco remains in an undersupply position. Looking ahead, we expect that recent elevated green tobacco prices will incentivize farmers to increase planting for the next season, potentially leading to more balanced markets in the coming years.”
August 8, 2024
Moldovan Tobacco Sector Asks for Help

Image: Igor Syrbu
Tutun Moldova has asked the government to help tobacco growers cope with adverse events such as drought, reports IPN Press Agency.
According to the association, this year’s dry spell has negatively affected two-thirds of the 400 hectares cultivated with tobacco.
In an open letter, Tutun Moldova President Vasile Coșneanu asked Prime Minister Dorin Recean and Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea to consider tobacco producers’ plight.
According to Coșneanu, Moldova’s tobacco industry can be highly profitable. In 2000, Moldova earned more than $29 million from leaf exports. In 1985, farmers cultivated tobacco on about 77,000 hectares. By 2023, however, this area had dropped below 200 hectares.
Tutun Moldova believes that sector can once again become a pillar of the national economy, providing up to 40,000 jobs and contributing to GDP growth.
However, for this to happen, the sector requires support from public authorities, the association noted, adding that tobacco growers had neither received nor requested public assistance over the past decade.
“This year, however, the severe drought we are facing made us ask you to order the creation of a working group to assess the complicated situation in which the producers have found themselves and to develop a plan of concrete and realistic actions that would be implemented to remedy the state of affairs,” the group wrote in its letter.
“We express our willingness to provide the necessary support to this working group, as we consider that the interest is mutual.”
August 8, 2024
Cut Rag’s Harare Factory Nearing Completion

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Cut Rag Processor’s factory in Harare, is nearing completion, reports The Sunday Mail. The plant will process cut rag tobacco and manufacture cigarettes for domestic and export markets.
According to Cut Rag Processors Managing Director Nyasha Chinhara, the project, which will triple the company’s current production is about 85 percent finished. Construction is almost complete and technicians have been installing production machinery and ancillary services.
The company expects to commence production of cut rag tobacco before the end of 2024.
“With this facility providing both cut rag processing and cigarette manufacturing, coupled with the increased installed production capacity, there shall be an increase in value addition of Zimbabwean tobacco products,” Chinhara told The Sunday Mail.
“The sustainable growing, processing and manufacturing of tobacco products in Zimbabwe shall play a key role in Zimbabwean tobacco’s competitiveness in future.”
August 8, 2024
Inaccurate Disclosures Nicotine Analogs: Study

Photo: ryanking999
Companies are inaccurately disclosing the ingredients in products containing nicotine analogs, according to researchers at Duke University and Yale University. Remarkably, in many instances, the levels measured were lower than those labeled on the packaging.
Nicotine analogs are currently not subject to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s marketing authorization process and have not been extensively studied for their health effects. One chemical, known as 6-methyl nicotine, has been shown in rodent experiments to be far more potent than nicotine in targeting the brain’s nicotine receptors.
The scientists analyzed a Spree Bar e-cigarette, which is listed as containing 5 percent 6-methyl nicotine. Study results showed the actual amount of the chemical was about 88 percent less than labeled. The e-cigarettes also included an artificial sweetener that is up to 13,000 times sweeter than table sugar, and an artificial coolant that mimics menthol’s effects.
A second brand of e-cigarettes, marketed as Nixotine, Nixodine, Nixamide and Nic-Safe, contained a nicotine analog called nicotinamide, also at levels lower than the labels indicated, and combined with undisclosed amounts of 6-methyl nicotine. This brand did not include sweeteners or coolants.
The researchers speculated that companies are using nicotine analogs to bypass health regulations covering vaping products.
“These products appear to be designed to circumvent the laws and regulations in place to protect people—especially children—from the harmful effects of smoking and tobacco use,” said senior author Sven Eric Jordt in a statement. “We do not know what these chemicals do when they are heated and inhaled. These are questions that should be answered before we allow products on the market.”
August 8, 2024
Activists Concerned About Vape Rules

Image: Butenkow/Usama
The Malaysian Vapers Alliance (MVA) is voicing concerns about the potential impact of the Control of Smoking Products for Public Health Act 2024 (Act 852) on the vaping community.
With Act 852 currently in its final review at the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the MVA is urging lawmakers to consider the consequences of overly stringent regulations on vapers, especially ex-smokers who have quit smoking by switching to vaping.
A survey conducted by the MVA last year revealed 73.7 percent of vapers in Malaysia are former smokers. The MVA cautions the government that classifying vaping products in the same category as cigarettes under the new regulations, including strict measures like a ban on display of vape products, could drive these ex-smokers back to smoking cigarettes. This shift would undermine public health efforts to reduce smoking rates.

We urge the government to adopt a balanced approach that recognizes the harm reduction potential of vape and provide a supportive environment for vapers to stay off tobacco.
Khairil Azizi Khairuddin, president, Malaysian Vapers Alliance
Khairil Azizi Khairuddin, president of the Malaysian Vapers Alliance emphasized the importance of separate regulations between vape and tobacco products to prevent a regression in public health outcomes.
“Harsh regulations that fail to distinguish between vaping and smoking, like banning the display of vape products, could see many vapers, who have successfully quit smoking traditional tobacco, to revert to their old habits,” Khairil Azizi Khairuddin said. “Such a shift not only jeopardize their health but also reverses nationwide progress in reducing smoking prevalence in Malaysia.”
“We urge the government to adopt a balanced approach that recognizes the harm reduction potential of vape and provide a supportive environment for vapers to stay off tobacco.”
The MVA survey also revealed that the majority of vapers (80.1 percent) switched to vape as it helped them quit smoking. The implementation of harsh regulations, that do not consider these facts, could undermine the progress of reducing smoking rates in the country.
“MVA calls on the ministry of health to ensure that the final version of Act 852 includes sensible regulations that support harm reduction and do not classify vaping products the same as cigarettes. We believe that informed and balanced regulation can protect public health while ensuring that vapers do not revert to smoking,” Khairil Azizi Khairuddin said.
August 8, 2024
KT&G Reports Growth in Second Quarter

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
KT&G Corp. reported consolidated revenue of KRW1.42 trillion ($1.03 billion) and operating profit of KRW321.5 billion for its second quarter of 2024, marking a year-over-year growth rate of 6.6 percent and 30.6 percent, respectively.
The company attributed the growth to robust performance in its overseas cigarette business, which achieved growth in all key metrics, including revenue, operating profit and sales volume. Revenue reached an all-time high of KRW359.1 billion, reflecting a growth rate of 35.3 percent. Operating profit soared 139.1 percent year-over-year.
KT&G’s domestic next-generation product business also grew in in all three key metrics: revenue increased by 10.8 percent, operating profit by 42.8 percent and sales volume by 7.7 percent year-over-year. The overseas business continued to improve its profitability, driven by an increased proportion of stick sales volume, which is the key growth driver of the business.
During an earnings call, KT&G said it intends to accelerate progress toward its goal of becoming “a global top-tier company” by strengthening fundamental competitiveness and structural reforms. To that end, the company in July announced an agreement with Philip Morris International under which the partners will collaborate on premarket tobacco product application submissions for KT&G’s new next-generation products in the United States.
KT&G also updated its full-year outlook during the earnings conference call. The company projects the annual consolidated revenue to grow between 2.5 percent and 3 percent, with operating profit expected to remain flat, reflecting changes in the business environment in the company’s health functional food and real estate sectors.
“We achieved growth in both revenue and operating profit in the second quarter by expanding our overseas business, which delivered solid performance in our core growth areas. We will continue to maximize corporate value by strengthening the competitiveness of our core growth businesses and enhance shareholder value through our best-in-class shareholder return policy,” KT&G wrote in a press release.
August 8, 2024
Tanzania President Lays First Stone for Factory

Photo: The office of President Samia Suluhu Hassan
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan on Aug. 6 laid the foundation stone for a $300 million cigarette factory in Morogoro, reports The Citizen.
The Serengeti Cigarette Co. factory will supplement the recently reopened Mkwawa leaf-processing facility, which is in the process of expanding its annual capacity from 80 million kg to 200 million kg. Upon completion, the factory will be the world’s second-largest leaf-processing facility, according to Minister of Agriculture Hussein Bashe.
During the previous administration, the Mkwawa plant ceased operations due to financial and regulatory challenges, including fines totaling TZS2 trillion ($740.66 million) imposed by The Fair Competition Commission and the Tanzania Revenue Authority.
When President Hasan’s government took office in March 2021, it annulled the fines as part of a program to revive and expand Tanzania’s tobacco business.
According to Bashe, these actions allowed tobacco production to increase from 65 million kg in 2021 to 122 million kg in the most recent growing season, catapulting Tanzania to the No. 2 position among tobacco producers in Africa, after Zimbabwe.
The ready market also boosted prices from $1.40 per kilogram three years ago to $2.40 during the just-completed season, said Bashe. Tanzania earned $400 million from tobacco exports this year.
Upon completion, the new cigarette factory will employ 12,000 permanent and seasonal positions and generate additional demand for local leaf.
Keen to reduce the environmental impact of tobacco production, Mkwawa has been encouraging farmers to dry their tobacco in the sun rather than in wood-fueled curing barns. The company aims to have at least 30 percent of its contracted farmers cure their tobacco this way.
August 7, 2024
Tabesa Sanctioned

Tabesa operates a factory near Ciudad del Este.
(Photo: Taco Tuinstra)
The United States is imposing sanctions on Tabacalera del Este (Tabesa) of Paraguay for allegedly enriching the country’s former president, Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara, a cigarette tycoon sanctioned by the White House for corruption.
One of Paraguay’s richest men, Cartes Jara served as president from 2013 to 2018 and still wields significant political power in the country, according to the Associated Press.
In 2023, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Cartes Jara over accusations that he had paid millions of dollars in bribes to lawmakers to pave his way to power and that he had cultivated ties to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, which is believed to operate in the tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.
On March 31, 2023, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) identified Tabesa as an entity in which Cartes Jara owned a 50 percent or greater interest. Pursuant to a sales agreement between Tabesa and Cartes Jara, Tabesa has made payments worth millions of dollars to Cartes Jara, according to the OFAC.
“Today’s actions reinforce the United States’ sanctions on former President Cartes and demonstrate the U.S.’ commitment to ensuring the integrity of our sanctions programs and inhibiting Cartes’ ability to receive financial benefits,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a press note.
“The United States remains dedicated to ensuring accountability for Cartes and to promoting meaningful anti-corruption reform in Paraguay.”
The OFAC’s designation of Tabesa was taken in the context of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
Cartes Jara says he no longer owns nor is actively involved in the management of Tabacalera del Este, a company that has drawn scrutiny because of its massive volumes of cigarette sales in a relatively small market.
August 7, 2024