Tag: Sampoerna

  • Indonesia: Profits Plunge After Tax Hike

    Indonesia: Profits Plunge After Tax Hike

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    The profits of Indonesia’s two biggest cigarette manufacturers dropped significantly following a cigarette excise tax hike, reports The Jakarta Post.

    Gudang Garam and Sampoerna saw their net profits decline 28.62 percent year-on-year to IDR1.74 trillion ($120.6 million) and 22.13 percent to IDR2.58 trillion, respectively, in the first quarter of the year.

    The two companies’ net profits were hit by rising excise costs on top of weak cigarette demand. The finance ministry raised cigarette excises by around 12.5 percent starting in February after raising them 23 percent last year to deter smoking and raise state revenue.

    However, the hike applied to only machine-made cigarettes and not to hand-rolled cigarettes.

    Most of tobacco companies’ sales volume in Indonesia comes from machine-made clove cigarettes.

  • Sampoerna Suspends Operations After Covid Deaths

    Sampoerna Suspends Operations After Covid Deaths

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Indonesian cigarette manufacturer Sampoerna temporarily closed a cigarette factory in East Java after two workers died of the coronavirus, reports The Straits Times, citing local authorities in Jakarta.

    Two of the company’s laborers who worked in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, died on April 14 and tested positive for Covid-19. Nine fellow workers who showed symptoms later were sent to a hospital for treatment, local media reported.

    As many as 323 workers who did not show symptoms underwent rapid tests and 63 of them had positive results, state news agency Antara reported.

    With some 26,000 workers, Sampoerna is the biggest cigarette producer in Indonesia, where about 60 percent of the male population are smokers. The company is 92.5 percent owned by Philip Morris International.

    The factory’s closure is unlikely to affect the company’s total production as Sampoerna has cigarette factories in several other locations.

    Indonesia has 10,100 Covid-19 confirmed cases, with 792 deaths as of April 30—the highest number of coronavirus fatalities in South-east Asia.