Tag: Vietnam

  • Vietnam: Worry About Student Vaping

    Vietnam: Worry About Student Vaping

    Image: Tobacco Reporter archive

    Vietnam’s health ministry is concerned about rising incidents relating to student vaping, according to VietnamPlus.

    According to the ministry’s Department of Medical Service Administration, there have been many incidents of students requiring emergency medical attention due to nicotine poisoning and other chemicals present in e-cigarettes and heated cigarette products.

    The department believes that e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes pose risks and contribute to drug abuse and other addictive behaviors, which adversely affect the health and lifestyle of adolescents. 

    The department urges more communication and awareness-raising efforts about the dangers of these products, suggesting that health departments advise the People’s Committees of provinces and cities to issue directives to regularly propagate the harmful effects of ordinary cigarettes, e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes and that regulations should be promptly enforced and inspection activities enhanced.  

  • Vietnam Wants to Ban New Tobacco Products

    Vietnam Wants to Ban New Tobacco Products

    Image: Faraz | Adobe Stock

    Vietnam’s Ministry of Health has called for a ban on all new tobacco products following the publication of a study suggesting that youth vaping has led to more hospitalizations for psychosis, hallucinations or respiratory failure, reports VietnamPlus.

    A recent study found that the e-cigarette smoking rate among students increased to 3.5 percent in 2021 from 2.6 percent in 2019, according to Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, an official from the Vietnam Tobacco Control Fund at the Ministry of Health.

    “E-cigarette devices that look like USB drives, pen or pen boxes are making it tough for parents to detect and keep their kids from vaping,” said Nguyen Huu Hoang, a lecturer from the Medical Education Center at Ho Chi Minh City’s University of Medicine and Pharmacy. “They also make young people curious and excited by their eye-catching, fashionable and modern designs.”

  • Experts Call for Simplified Tobacco Tax

    Experts Call for Simplified Tobacco Tax

    Credit: Talulla

    Tobacco taxation experts have recommended the government of Vietnam simplify the country’s excise tax structure on tobacco, reports EIN News. The move would facilitate tax administration, reduce opportunities for tax avoidance and evasion, increase the government’s revenues and have a greater impact on reducing tobacco use.

    The recommendation comes after the Vietnam government approved a tax reform strategy for up to 2030, which sets the process for switching from an ad valorem tax system to a hybrid tax system for tobacco and other products subject to excise tax.

    A number of experts suggest that a hybrid tax system that includes ad valorem and specific taxes is the most simple and effective system. In a recent report titled “Study on the Special Consumption Tax System,” PwC Vietnam called it “The right direction in line with the general trend in the world.”

    According to the report, the government has lost revenues due to tobacco smuggling, especially in 2016–2017.

    The total tax loss due to smuggled tobacco consumption has reached nearly 9 percent of tobacco tax collection, and tax collection of tobacco remained unchanged in the 2006–2020 period without factoring in inflation, the report said.

    Based on the analysis of the current excise tax policy, the objectives of the government and tax policies in comparable countries, it outlined a number of options for SCT reform along with roadmaps for the short-term and the long-term.

    The first option is transitioning into a hybrid tax system then gradually increasing the specific component and decreasing the ad valorem component at an appropriate time in future, considering to move to a single-tier specific tax system when being suitable.

    The second option is transitioning into a multi-tier specific tax system and then gradually narrow down the number of tiers to become a one-tier specific system.

    Both options have both advantages and disadvantages, but PwC Vietnam believes that the first is more reasonable for Vietnam. According to the Asia Illegal Tobacco Index, in 2017, more than 24.3 billion illegal cigarettes were consumed in Vietnam, or 23.4 percent of total tobacco consumption.

  • Vietnam Mulls Ban on Novel Tobacco Products

    Vietnam Mulls Ban on Novel Tobacco Products

    Photo: Michele

    Vietnam’s health ministry has proposed a ban on next-generation tobacco products (NGPs), reports VN Express International. The country’s current law on tobacco harm prevention lacks provisions for e-cigarettes and heated-tobacco products.

    According to Tran Thi Trang, deputy head of the Ministry of Health’s legislation department, a trial allowing the distribution of NGPs revealed potential negative impacts, including on youth behavior.

    The percentage of people using e-cigarettes in Vietnam increased to 3.6 percent from 0.2 percent during 2015–2020, according to the health ministry.

    With 15.6 million smokers, Vietnam ranks 15th in the world in terms of combustible cigarette users, the Legal Affairs Department at the Ministry of Information and Communications said. People in Vietnam spend an estimated VND49 trillion ($2 billion) per year.

  • Vietnam Sets Import Quotas for Cambodian Tobacco

    Vietnam Sets Import Quotas for Cambodian Tobacco

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Cambodia may export up to 3,000 tons of leaf tobacco to Vietnam under preferential import tax rates this year, reports The Khmer Times, citing Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoiT).

    In order to enjoy the preferential import tax rate, the products must be accompanied by a Certificate of Origin issued by the Cambodian Ministry of Trade or another authorized agency, and their customs clearance procedures must be conducted at designated border crossings.

    For dried tobacco leaves, importers must show a license to import raw tobacco under tariff quotas issued by the MoIT.

    In September last year, Vietnam announced that it would impose a zero percent tax rate on 31 commodities imported from Cambodia such as live poultry, poultry meat and by-products, lemons and rice.

    The list also includes finished pork products and unprocessed tobacco leaves.

  • Vietnam Extends Quota for Cambodian Leaf

    Vietnam Extends Quota for Cambodian Leaf

    Photo: BAT

    Vietnam has extended its 3,000-ton duty-free quota for Cambodian dried tobacco leaves for 2021, reports the Phnom Penh Post, citing Ministry of Commerce spokesman Seang Thay.

    The extension is part of the renewal process of a bilateral trade facilitation agreement for 2021–2022 reached by the 18th Cambodia-Vietnam Joint Commission meeting on Dec. 22 and yet to be formally ratified, with retroactive benefits for exports.

    Cambodia and Vietnam inked the agreement in October 2016 to drop import tariffs on dozens of products to boost bilateral trade and have renewed it every two years since. The goods covered in the deal, however, are determined on a yearly basis.

    The kingdom exported 1.38 million kg of dried tobacco to Vietnam last year valued at $4.2 million, down 34.37 percent by volume from 2019, according to ministry data.

    Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries data shows that Cambodia exported a total of 5.82 million kg of dried tobacco leaves last year, down 14.02 percent from 2019.

    The outbound shipments were worth $17.46 million, 28.34 percent compared to 2019’s value.

    The primary destinations for Cambodian leaf are Vietnam, Indonesia, Hungary, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, South Africa, Greece, Singapore and Germany.

    Last year, the area under tobacco cultivation was 5,175 ha, of which 4,875 ha were harvested, producing 6,132 tons, representing a 1 percent drop from 2019.

  • Vietnam Urged to Set its Own THR Rules

    Vietnam Urged to Set its Own THR Rules

    Photo: Quang Nguyen vinh from Pixabay

    The International Network of Nicotine Consumers Organizations (INNCO) is urging the Vietnamese government to exercise “true independence” in its regulation of tobacco harm reduction (THR) products, warning that failure to adopt evidence-based guidelines will lead to substandard products and economic development losses.

    Samrat Chowdhery

    “We understand that the government wants to improve regulatory compliance to reduce harm from smoking, but it also needs to understand its stakeholders in order to formulate an effective regulatory design,” said Samrat Chowdhery, president of INNCO’s governing board in a letter to Vietnam’s Ministry of Health. “We believe it is problematic if the entity drafting regulations does not have a solid, evidence-based understanding of the THR issue.”

    INNCO’s concerns stem from the possibility that regulations will be drafted by the Vietnam Tobacco Control Fund, a long-time grantee of The International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), a Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded organization that has repeatedly called for worldwide bans on all electronic nicotine delivery systems and other THR products in low- and middle-income countries.

    “The issue with having a regulation drafted by this entity [The Union] is that it will always be biased,” said Chowdhery in a statement, pointing to similar co-opting of tobacco policies in other Asian nations.

    “In the Philippines, legislators have questioned the conflict of interest in their Food and Drug Administration after confirming that it receives funds from Bloomberg Philanthropies and The Union, while pushing for an anti-vaping policy. In India, the new tobacco law has been drafted by a Bloomberg-funded group, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids,” he said.

    “INNCO speaks for the consumers from Vietnam who are silent on this issue for fear that their civil liberties will be compromised,” said Chowdhery. “It is vital that the government exercise true independence and allow consumers to be part of the regulatory framework.”

  • Vietnam Struggling With Smuggling

    Vietnam Struggling With Smuggling

    Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive

    Vietnam loses VND8.5 trillion ($366.4 million) in tax revenue each year to tobacco smuggling, according to a recent article in Vietnam News.

    Tobacco use among those in Vietnam is more than 45 percent, with a constant increase in young people taking up smoking. Vietnam is one of 15 countries with the highest rate of smokers, according to the World Health Organization. Tobacco-smuggling brings high profits, according to Nguyen Mahn Hung, chairman of the Vietnam Consumer Protection Association.

    “Smuggling can bring profits of up to 400 percent while official imported cigarettes are subject to import tax of between 100 percent and 202.5 percent and value added tax of 10 percent,” he said. Vietnam is third in the region for illegal tobacco trading, with 21 billion sticks of illegal tobacco products. 

    In related news, Health experts and anti-smoking advocates met at a conference by the Ministry of Information and Communications in Ho Chi Minh City, on July 23 to express their concerns about the rising incidence rates of vapor and heat-not-burn (HNB) tobacco products among youth.

    Phan Thi Hai, deputy director of the Vietnam Tobacco Control Fund under the country’s Ministry of Health, noted that while his ministry has worked hard to decrease cigarette consumption in recent years, it has been outflanked by the large rise in vapor and HNB tobacco product users.

    Hai said that the makers of these products use “compact, eye-catching designs and various flavors” to entice new users, whether they are smokers or nonsmokers.

    Le Thi Thu from HealthBridge Canada urged the Vietnam government to develop a legal framework to control vapor and HNB tobacco products with authorities to make extra efforts to inspect and prevent production, imports, marketing and sales of these products.  

  • Auctions to boost exports

    Auctions to boost exports

    Vietnam is due to start auctioning quality smuggled foreign cigarettes on a trial basis starting on June 18, according to a Xinhua News Agency story.
    The Ministry of Industry and Trade reportedly said yesterday that, under a prime ministerial decision, the cigarettes would be sold for export, but only to countries that did not border Vietnam.
    Revenues earned from the auctions are to be used to help combat cigarette smuggling.
    According to the Vietnam Tobacco Association, nearly one billion packs of smuggled cigarettes are smoked in Vietnam each year, causing ‘losses’ of about US$450 million to the state’s budget.
    A recent survey by the country’s Health Ministry showed that Vietnam has 15.6 million smokers aged over 15, 85.3 percent of whom smoke daily.
    They spend about 31 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly US$1.4 billion) on their habit annually.

  • Smoking in Vietnam

    Smoking in Vietnam

    More than 45 percent of Vietnamese men smoke cigarettes, and many of them start smoking before the age of 20, according to a Xinhua News Agency story reporting on an anti-smoking conference held in Ho Chi Minh City yesterday.
    The Vietnam Office of HealthBridge Foundation of Canada, was said to have told Xinhua that the Vietnam segment of a global adult tobacco survey conducted by Vietnamese and foreign agencies had put the over-15 smoking population at 15.6 million, 85.3 percent of whom smoked daily.
    The survey found that 75.9 percent of smokers smoked at least 10 cigarettes a day, and 37.6 percent consumed at least 20.
    Smokers annually spent about 31 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly US$1.4 billion) on their habit.
    And on average, men started smoking daily at the age of 18.8 years.
    In 2010, the World Health Organization estimated that about 48 percent of men and about one percent of women smoked in Vietnam. And, according to the Xinhua story, the organization has projected that the rate will be 47 percent of men and one percent of women by 2025.
    Meanwhile, the Ho Chi Minh City-based Vietnam Tobacco Association said that nearly one billion packs of smuggled cigarettes were consumed in Vietnam each year, causing ‘losses’ of about US$450 million to the state budget, and resulting in the loss of one million jobs for farmers and workers in the domestic tobacco industry.