Category: News This Week

British American TobaccoRomaniaannounced on Thursday that it will spend about €40 million on expanding its manufacturing facility atPloiesti, according to an Economic Daily story relayed by the TMA.

The company says that the changes will boost the plant’s production capacity by 20 per cent.

BATRomaniawill spend €25 million on construction, which is expected to be finished in February, and €15 million on new equipment.

The story said that of the total equipment spend, €4 million would be used to buy machinery to produce cigarette packs in a special format for the Greek and Cypriot export markets.

Concerns expressed inBulgariaearlier this week about a proposal to ban the production of oriental tobacco within the EU have proved to be unfounded, according to a Novinite story.

The misunderstanding arose apparently because oriental tobacco is an aromatic tobacco and the European Commission is known to be considering proposing revisions to the EU’s tobacco products directive that would see a ban on the addition of certain aromatic ingredients – basically flavors.

The Bulgarian MEP, Maria Gabriel, who is a member of the Agriculture Committee, said the alarm in Bulgaria was caused by worries that oriental tobacco would included in the group of the so-called aroma ingredients, such as menthol and cherry, which would most likely be banned as part of the tobacco directive revisions.

It is to be seen, however, whether these concerns will disappear. Yesterday, Bulgarian National Radio quoted Frederic Vincent, spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, as saying that ‘currently’ the Commission was not planning to examine the ‘issue’ of oriental tobacco.

Government data show that significant amounts of tobacco are being smuggled out of Cambodiaeach year, according to a story in The Phnom Penh Post quoting health and economics experts.

A national tobacco survey from 2011 showed that more tobacco was produced in Cambodia than was consumed there, and much of the difference came from smuggling rather than legal exports, said the World Health Organization’s tobacco economics unit head, Dr. Ayda Yurekli, speaking at a press conference on Wednesday.

The data from the tobacco survey was not made available at the conference because it is said to be confidential.

Yurekli and representatives of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance called on Cambodiaand its low-tobacco-tax neighbours, including Laos, to increase tobacco taxes by more than 10 per cent so as to have a significant impact on public health.

“As the taxes increase, there may be incentive not to smuggle tobacco out,” Yurekli said.

The Chief Minister of the Indian state of Kerala, Oommen Chandy, has asked his counterpart in Karnataka, CM Jagadish Shettar, to ban the sale of smokeless tobacco, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.

The Kerala government outlawed the production and distribution of products such as gutkha and pan masala in May, creating an attractive opportunity for traders from the neighboring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile, the Delhi State Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, has imposed a blanket ban on chewing tobacco products, making the state the 12^th to do so in recent times.

The ban covers the manufacture, transportation, storage, display, sale and purchase of chewable forms of tobacco such as gutkha, pan masala, khaini and zarda.

Violations of the ban can lead to a seven year prison term and an Rs100,000 fine.

Apart fromDelhiand Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Gujurat, Rajasthan andPunjabhave implemented bans on chewing tobacco.

Altria said yesterday that its tobacco operating companies were conducting a non-partisan voter education and awareness campaign for adult tobacco consumers; as they had done in past election cycles.

‘Philip Morris USA, U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company and John Middleton will reach out to adult consumers stressing the importance of voting and encouraging them to make their voices heard on November 6th,’ the company said in a note posted on its website. ‘These efforts are designed to help adult consumers register to vote and participate in the fall elections.

‘Adult consumers can go to www.tobaccorights.com/vote, which includes information about the voter registration process, polling locations and candidates for state and federal offices.’

Tobacco growers inIndia, predominantly those from the main flue-cured production states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, are to intensify their protests against proposals to phase out tobacco growing, according to a story in the most recent issue of the BBM Bommidala Group Newsletter.

The growers are concerned that draft guidelines of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) threaten their livelihood andIndia’s exports.

The FCTC wants to phase out tobacco farming by forcing countries to decrease the area on which the crop is grown and dismantle trade bodies that promote tobacco, such as the Tobacco Board of India.

The growers are concerned by other proposals, too, including one that would ban most cigarette additives used by the tobacco industry.

“If these guidelines are adopted, these could render 30 per cent of our production unusable,” said Udayan Lall, the director of the Tobacco Institute of India.

“Not only will there be a sharp decline in prices, but even export earnings will be seriously impacted.”

The FCTC is due to meet inSeoulduring November.

The Korea Tobacco Growers Organization (KTGO), which represents about 5,000 farmers, has expressed its opposition to new proposals from the World Health Organization, according to a story in The Korea Times.

The Seoul-based organization says that the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) will end up substantially cutting the income of Korean tobacco growers and threatening their livelihood.

The growers have issued their warning two months before representatives of more than 160 FCTC-member countries are due to meet in Seoul to discuss ways of regulating the tobacco industry and cigarette consumption.

“The current proposals go far beyond the FCTC’s original mandate,” said KTCO chairman, Lee Haw-kwon. “They are designed to force all governments to put the tobacco farming industry out of business without providing us with any economically viable alternative crop.

“If the unreasonable proposals pass during the FCTC’s upcoming fifth Conference of Parties, which takes place in Seoul in November, it will put more than 30 million farmers at risk, including Korean tobacco farmers who have been in the industry for more than 400 years.’’

Lee said that originally the FCTC had stated that governments should provide technical and financial assistance to aid the economic transition of tobacco growers and workers whose livelihoods were seriously affected as a consequence of tobacco control policies.

But the newly-suggested FCTC Articles 17 and 18 lacked any mention of helping farmers transfer to other crops.

Lee has asked the Seoul administration to oppose the new proposals in Article 17 and 18, which he said wrongly assumed that a reduction of tobacco farming households would automatically lead to a decrease in cigarette consumption.

The Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Tan Dung, hopes to light up his country’s anti-smuggling budget with a scheme to re-export seized tobacco, according to a Vietnam News Agency story.

Under the PM approved Decision No. 1112, good quality tobacco seized from smugglers will be re-exported as part of an experiment running from now until the end of 2013.

Money earned from the pilot scheme will be used for future anti-smuggling activities.

According to the terms of the decision, the re-exports must not go to countries borderingViet   Nam.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will be responsible for appointing suitable enterprises to perform the re-exports, as well as regulating them.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday urgedCambodiato increase taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products in order to raise state revenues and discourage smokers, according to a Xinhua Newswire story.

“Increasing tobacco tax will reduce consumption especially among the higher prevalence groups such as low-income and uneducated groups,” said Ayda A. Yurekli, co-ordinator for the WHO Tobacco Control Economics Unit, during a press briefing after a two-day, tobacco-taxation workshop in Phnom Penh.

She said that if the government increased tobacco tax by 10 per cent, smoking prevalence would fall by between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent.

Speaking at the workshop, Hang Chuon Naron, secretary of state at the Cambodian Finance Ministry, said the government was considering increasing tobacco tax.

He said thatCambodia, with a 10 per cent tax on tobacco, was the country with the lowest tobacco tax.