Tag: State Tobacco Monopoly Administration

Former STMA Leader Under Investigation

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Chinese authorities are investigating Zhao Hongshun, former deputy chief of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, for corruption, reports Xinhua News
In a statement, the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and National Supervisory Commission said that Zhao “had lost his ideals and convictions, defied Party discipline and laws, was disloyal and dishonest to the Party and resisted investigation.”
Taking advantage of his posts, Zhao sought benefits for others in personnel promotion, consorted with illegal private enterprise owners, traded power for money and received gifts and money, according to the accusations.
Zhao allegedly also engaged in profit-driven activities against Party rules, and illegally owned shares of companies.
Authorities said Zhao’s illicit gains would be confiscated and the suspected crimes will be transferred to the procuratorate for further investigation and prosecution.
January 10, 2023
China to Restrict E-Cigarette Shipments

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China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) plans to limit the number of vapor products a person can carry on them, reports The Global Times.
According to a notice published Nov. 23, a person can possess a maximum of six “smoking devices,” 90 e-cigarette cartridges and 180 mL of e-liquid.
On the same day, the STMA and the State Post Bureau jointly announced restrictions on the delivery of vapor products. Each shipment may contain a maximum of two “sets,” six cartridges and 12 mL of e-liquid.
Each recipient is allowed to accept delivery of no more than one shipment of vapor products per day.
In April, China’s tobacco regulator approved mandatory national standards for e-cigarettes that came into effect in October.
November 23, 2022
Snowplus Obtains China Production License
China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration has granted Snowplus Tech a production license that allows the company to produce 80 million pods annually. In a press note, the company said it will now take on the “challenge and responsibility to help lead the development of a healthy and sustainable vaping industry.”
While the U.S. government has strict regulations for vaping products, there has been a rise in fake or counterfeits of popular brands in the country, which has led to an increase in incidents relating to poorly manufactured variations, according to Snowplus. This, the company says, highlights the importance of using a reputable, tested and certified vape product.
Snowplus stresses that its products are designed in-house, developed by experts in specialist R&D centers and manufactured in one of the largest, most advanced e-cigarette facilities in the world.
Established in January 2019 and backed by investors such as Zhen fund and Sequoia, Snowplus has more than 60 criteria for testing to ensure product safety and quality. With three CNAS certified research laboratories, its safety protocols are recognized and interoperable by 65 institutions in 50 countries, according to the company.
“There is an increasing trend for cheap counterfeit vapes on the market, which we find deeply concerning,” said Derek Li, Snowplus co-founder and head of overseas markets. “That is why we have invested heavily in product research to create products that enhance the vaping experience while ensuring it is as safe as possible.”
Snowplus has invested over $2 million in quality and safety research, and to help prevent e-liquid from leaking out of products, it conducts impact tests in variable temperature, humidity and pressure conditions, according to the company. In addition, Snowplus’ batteries pass two tests before assembly to “guarantee that devices can operate in different environments,” the firm wrote in its press release.
November 16, 2022
Feelm Earns Chinese Production License

Photo: Smoore
Smoore’s flagship atomization platform, Feelm, has received an e-cigarette production license from China’s State Tobacco Monopoly.
In early 2022, China introduced new national standards for electronic cigarettes, which required companies manufacturing these devices to obtain a production license. Three Smoore factories, two of which are licensed under the Feelm brand, have been granted these licenses, with Feelm also receiving official approval to produce e-cigarettes as its own entity.
In a press note, Smoore said it welcomed the new policy framework, as it ensures that all e-cigarette manufacturers now operate in full compliance with the law. The company says it aims to use science and technology as the driving force behind its business model.
With its products available in more than 50 countries, Feelm now has a total annual production capacity of 2 billion devices and boasts a fully automated production line that can produce more than 7,200 atomizers per hour.
Earlier, the STMA issued an e-cigarette production license to Smoore’s Vaporesso brand. As of Aug. 4, more than 130 enterprises, including RLX Technology and BYD Electronics, had obtained licenses, according to Panda Daily.
August 16, 2022
RLX Obtains Chinese Manufacturing License

Photo: RLX Technology
China’s State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) has licensed RLX Technology to operate in the vapor business.
On Nov. 26, 2021, China’s State Council amended the country’s tobacco monopoly law to include vapor products, giving the STMA authority to regulate the sector.
The STMA license, which is valid until July 31, 2023, allows RLX Technology to manufacture 15.05 million rechargeable vaping devices, 328.7 million cartridges and 6.1 million disposable e-cigarettes per year.
Since the first quarter of 2022, Chinese authorities have issued a series of implementing rules and guiding opinions to strengthen oversight of e-cigarette products and regulate the e-cigarette industry. These rules and opinions set forth that all e-cigarette manufacturing enterprises must obtain a license from the STMA.
“This license represents an important milestone in our strategic roadmap as we strive to comply with the new regulatory requirements in a timely manner,” said Ying (Kate) Wang, co-founder, chairperson of the board of directors and CEO of RLX Technology, in a statement.
“We believe that we are well-positioned to achieve compliance in our operations according to schedule. To adapt to the new market dynamics and ensure business development, we will, and will urge our business partners to, continue making efforts to comply with all applicable regulatory requirements, including, but not limited to, obtaining requisite licenses and regulatory approvals, developing products that meet the mandatory national standards, and processing all transactions via the National E-cigarette Transaction Platform when it is implemented.
“We will remain committed to providing high-quality products that deliver superior performance and safety in strict compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, while exploring new growth opportunities in the industry.”
July 24, 2022
Zinwi Receives E-Liquid Production License

Credit: Zinwi
Zinwi Bio-Tech has secured a production license for electronic cigarettes (e-liquid category) in China, becoming one of the first manufacturers to do so under the country’s new regulatory framework.
In March, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration passed the Electronic Cigarette Administration Measures, which took effect May 1. Under the new rules, a production license issued by the STMA is a precondition for the incorporation of a company involved in the manufacture of vapor hardware, e-liquids or e-cigarette nicotine.
Companies applying for the license must supply documents showing financial and manufacturing fitness, among other evidence.
Zinwi Bio-Tech was established in 2016 and is headquartered in Shenzhen’s Guangming District. A high-tech enterprise integrating the R&D, production and sales of e-liquid, the company ships more than 2,000 tons of e-liquid and approximately 1.3 billion pods per year. Products are exported to Europe, America and Canada, the Middle East, Russia and other destinations.
In a press note, the company said its commitment to quality is demonstrated by numerous accreditations, including the ISO9001 quality system, national CNAS laboratory and GMP certifications.

June 23, 2022
China Cracks Down on Tobacco Counterfeiters

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Chinese authorities seized 2.1 million counterfeit cigarettes, nearly 100,000 metric tons of leaf tobacco and about 1,700 cigarette-making machines between 2017 and 2021, reports China Daily. They also detained 44,000 suspects. The law enforcement actions prevented CNY100 billion ($15 billion) in lost tax earnings, according to the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), which coordinated its campaign with the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA).
The joint crackdown targeted the production and distribution of counterfeit cigarettes in key areas. Authorities focused on disrupting the criminal networks’ logistics, strangling the supply of production materials for fake cigarettes at the source.
Officials insisted the crackdown on counterfeiting will continue, with emphasis on combating activities such as illegal sales of leaf tobacco and illegal transport of cigarettes, and on cutting off the underground supply chain for the production and sale of counterfeit cigarettes.
June 7, 2022
China: E-Cig Licensing Rules Explained

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
The law firm Kelller & Heckman has published an article summarizing the requirements for obtaining an e-cigarette manufacturing license in China.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) has now published a rule outlining the process for Chinese e-cigarette manufacturers to obtain the required manufacturer license. This rule applies not only to manufacturers producing e-cigarettes for the domestic Chinese market, but also to the manufacturing of e-cigarettes solely for export.
According to Keller & Heckman, manufacturers will have to prepare many materials for their license application. Among other information, they will have to provide proof of suitable funds, production and sales information, including the balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement and production and sales statistics.
E-liquid manufacturers will have to supply a license for operating dangerous chemicals and identify the sources of nicotine used in the past three years. Applicants for export must submit materials explaining the export business and the scale of export, including the customs declaration forms for the past three years
Remarkably, the rules require companies manufacturing exclusively for export to obtain trademark registration in China. Although Keller and Heckman considers it unlikely that the STMA intended to impose the Chinese trademark registration requirement on exporters, the law firm advises clients to seek clarification from the authorities.
June 7, 2022
A New Sheriff in Town

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
China’s tobacco monopoly asserts its authority over vapor products.
By George Gay
It is wise to take seriously the warning that you should be careful what you wish for.
At the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) in London in September, which was held about six months after new vaping industry regulations had been publicly mooted in China, one speaker told those listening how vaping industry regulations were overdue, necessary and to be welcomed. At the time, I assumed this welcome was predicated on the belief that the regulations would be beneficial—that they would allow the industry to grow in a stable way and, in doing so, serve the interests of the businesses involved, smokers wanting to quit their habit, and society at large while, at the same time, helping to remove from the industry cowboy operators and substandard products.
Things have moved on since then. The regulations, formulated by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, were foreshadowed at the end of 2021, published in March 2022, became effective from May and are due to come fully into force in October.
The question is: Are the regulations beneficial? I would say they are far from ideal, but then ideal would probably have been an ambition too far. Looking on the bright side, they are better than a ban, as has been introduced in Hong Kong and elsewhere, and, furthermore, given the considerable investment in these regulations and the systems necessary to operate them, unless some unforeseen catastrophe occurs, they seem to rule out a ban being introduced, at least in the short term to medium term. But they will undoubtedly rein in the country’s vaping industry—severely in some areas.
The rise of China’s vaping industry has been hugely impressive, and the future had held out the offer of phenomenal growth, but now, predictions must surely be revised downward, particularly in respect of the domestic market, probably much less so in respect of exports. But in taking stock of this situation, it is necessary to bear in mind the relative importance of the huge and so far largely untapped domestic market.
Domestic Sales Versus Exports
One of the provisions of the regulations that will likely have upset those businesses and consumers looking for beneficial outcomes, assuming consumers in China tend to prefer the sorts of vaping products most popular in other countries, is the ban on flavored products other than those with tobacco flavors. They are unlikely, too, to have been overjoyed by a ban on nicotine-free products.
On the other hand, the industry can take heart from the fact that products with flavors other than tobacco and those that are nicotine-free may be manufactured for export where such products do not conflict with the laws of the country of destination. Basically, export products must comply with the laws, regulations and standards of the destination country, though, where the country of destination does not have vaping regulations in place, export products will have to comply with China’s regulations.
This difference between the requirements for local and export products raises an interesting question. The ban on the sale of nontobacco flavored and nicotine-free vaping products in China seems to be based, at least in part, on the idea that products with these properties are the ones favored by young people, who should be discouraged or, where minors are concerned, banned from vaping. This seems to be an ethical stance, but it is difficult to see how, given such an ethical stance, exports of such products could be allowed, even to countries that do not ban them.
The regulation’s authors say, in translation, the “Measures for the Administration of Electronic Cigarettes” are being put in place in order “to further strengthen the supervision of new tobacco products such as e-cigarettes, regulate the market order, ensure the health and safety of the people, and promote the legalization and standardization of industrial governance in accordance with the Tobacco Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China, the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors [and] the Regulations on the Implementation of the Tobacco Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China.” The regulations are said to cover the production, sale, transport, import and export, supervision and management of vaping products.
Market Order
There seem to be some curiosities in the regulations. From my reading, the regulators have gone down the U.S. route in deeming electronic cigarettes to be tobacco products, at least for the purposes of incorporating them under expanded tobacco laws. And while they refer to “vaping products,” they tend to refer to the use of these products as involving “smoking” rather than “vaping.” Having said that, I should point out that these are issues picked up by Western eyes from a translation of the regulations, which, unsurprisingly, have gone through a number of revisions.
One of the things that jumps out at a Westerner from the stated aims of the regulations is the idea of regulating “the order of the market.” China’s economic system is such that, in part, the regulations are concerned with supply-side matters whereas in much of the rest of the world, such considerations would not come into the picture. Elsewhere, the market is controlled, if that is the right word, by demand, so if it becomes oversupplied, prices fall and, eventually, companies go bust. Or that’s the basic theory. In reality, some companies are considered to be too “important” to fail and have to be bailed out by taxpayers.
The regulations aim to balance supply with demand through such mechanisms as setting production and sales targets, overseeing imports, controlling the expansion of companies, concentrating production sites, restricting product transport and overseeing wholesale and retail trading.
Some of these controls are to be exercised through the licensing and registration of existing and new manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and even the expansion of their operations, or other changes, including moves into the trading of imported products. One of the requirements for obtaining a license will be that the applicant has access to sufficient funds to carry out whatever enterprise it wants to engage in, which, along with certain other restraints, some observers believe will tend to favor the bigger companies and weed out smaller ones. Again, this weeding out of the smaller players seems to be following the U.S. route, though by using a registration requirement applied to the company rather than the product.
Big Versus Small
Whether you view such provisions as good or bad will probably depend on whether you are a small vaping industry operator in China likely to be driven out of business or a big one that will benefit from fewer competitors. Of course, if China is successful in using such a system to stabilize the market and ensure underfunded companies don’t go bust with all the social fallout such failures can cause, it will probably be seen to have done a good job. But there are clearly dangers in disadvantaging smaller businesses working within an industry that, because of its youth, is dependent on innovation for its success, commercially and socially.
In addition, the market will be closely controlled by “a unified national e-cigarette transaction management platform” through which manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers will have to process and record all their trading and transactions. Wholesalers wishing to trade in imported vaping products will have to obtain permission to do so, and the imported goods will have to comply with all local technical requirements and regulations and be sold, appropriately labeled, through the transaction management platform.
There are provisions in the regulations for dealing with counterfeit and inferior products and the infringement of intellectual property rights, including through the encouragement by rewards of people reporting cases of the illegal production and sale of vaping products.
The regulations will govern registered trademarks along with warnings and other messages applied to tobacco packaging, and they hold that e-cigarette advertising will be in line with tobacco advertising, which is consistent with their being regarded as tobacco products. E-cigarette exhibitions aimed at promoting such products are banned.
Sales of vaping products through “information networks” other than the transaction management platform are banned, as are sales through vending machines and sales to minors, with the onus being on retailers to check identity documents where the age of the would-be purchaser is in doubt.
The regulations will see the introduction of a product traceability system, and they will control the sites of retail outlets, including in respect of banning such outlets “around” schools. And they will provide for quality control through the inspection, testing, monitoring and evaluation of products under institutions set up to conduct technical reviews based on the submission of application materials, such as inspection and testing reports. Those engaged in production will be required to establish product quality assurance systems and be responsible for the quality of their products.
Meanwhile, in April, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the standards committee, published the national standards for electronic cigarettes (GB 41700-2022), which provides, among other things, details about the technical requirements for vaping products and relevant test methods, safety standards, permitted ingredients and nicotine levels and concentrations.
Encouragingly, some reports indicate that the newly regulated industry players will be encouraged to carry out vaping industry R&D in respect of raw materials, finished products and risk assessments, and that they will be encouraged to promote the application of green technology and other environmentally friendly practices.
George Gay is Tobacco Reporter’s European editor, but his territory spans the globe. Based in London, George has covered the tobacco industry since 1982, initially for a U.K.-based publication and since 2004 for Tobacco Reporter. George’s understanding of industry issues, combined with his keen sense of observation and dry wit, have earned him a loyal following among Tobacco Reporter’s readers.

June 1, 2022
China Drafts Guidelines for E-Cig Production

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
China’s tobacco regulator on Jan. 25 released draft rules for e-cigarette production, according to Reuters.
The State Tobacco Monopoly Administration said it would “reasonably” control manufacturing to prevent overcapacity.
The regulator said it would ban foreign investment in domestic e-cigarette retail operations while reviewing foreign involvement in production, requiring vapor companies that want to list in China or abroad to obtain pre-approval.
China has in recent months been tightening its scrutiny of e-cigarettes, and last year amended its tobacco monopoly law to include vaping products. Since then, it instructed e-cigarette and vaping companies to sell their products only through authorized channels, and barred vendors from selling e-cigarette flavors other than tobacco.
Earlier this month, China unveiled technical standards for e-cigarettes and vaping products.
China’s cigarette industry operates under a state-run monopoly directly controlled by the STMA, which dictates pricing and distribution for brands and generates tax income for the government.
April 25, 2022