Tobacco Asia

Volume 18, Number 4

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14 tobaccoasia • Double your resource value • Use 100% expanded fine- cut for MYO and RYO • Untouchable product quality • Impex – pressure/vacuum technology • DIET - Dry Ice Expansion Technology AircoDIET has supplied more than 55 DIET plants worldwide, many of which have been turn-key. We continuously develop and refine the DIET process and our DIET plants have above 95% uptime with a dry yield better than 98.5% through the plant. www.aircodiet.com Over 100% tobacco expansion expansion expansion expansion FRONT PAGES 卷首新闻 Morris in its submission. "It is unlawful, disproportionate, and at odds with the most basic requirements of the rule of law." The company argued that plain packaging rules are unlawful and run in opposition to the most basic requirement of what lawmaking should be. Philip Morris said the value of compensation it would seek could total "billions of pounds" based on a 2014 Exane BNP Paribas report, which estimated that the value of compensation for tobacco branding in the UK to be £9-11 billion (US$15-18 billion). In 2012-13, the government earned £12.3 billion in revenue from tobacco tax. Philippines Joining the "gory warnings" pack Philippine President Benigno Aquino III recently signed a law requiring tobacco companies to put graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, in spite of the fact that the president is himself known as an avid smoker. He has been criticized by anti-tobacco advocates for refusing calls to give up the habit. Aquino signed the law "to effectively instill health consciousness through graphic health warnings on tobacco products," said the president's spokes- man Herminio Coloma Jr. The Philip- pines will join more than 40 other countries and territories that have already adopted similar regulations. The law was not immediately made public, but legislation approved by lawmakers last month required graphic health warning to cover at least 50% of the bottom of cigarette packs, front and back. It also mandates the placement of pictures demonstrating negative smoking effects on the body like damaged lungs and throats. But the anti-tobacco lobby called for vigilance, as they believe it was a compromise that also accommodated the concerns of tobacco companies: there are provisions in the law that anti-smoking advocates say may allow tobacco companies to interfere in the law's enforcement. Before a "sin tax" was put into effect last year, the Philippines had some of the lowest prices for tobacco products in the world. To this day it is a tobacco producer and smoking haven, with 17.3 million smokers – one of Southeast Asia's highest rates. India Tobacco use up Active anti-smoking campaigns and huge hikes in cigarette taxes over the last few years might have levelled off sale of cigarettes, but other tobacco products continue to be under-taxed and their consumption is rising quickly. While approximately 50% of the retail price of cigarettes can be attributed to taxes, other tobacco products like bidis, chewing tobacco, khaini, etc, the use of which is equally or even more harmful to health than cigarettes, are taxed very low or almost not at all. According to Tobacco Institute of India (TII), while the share of "legal" cigarettes in total tobacco consumption in the country has declined from 21% in 1981-81 to 12% today, overall tobacco consumption in India has risen by 42% during the same period. "Thus, the objectives of both revenue enhancement and tobacco control have been defeated," says TII director Syed Mahmood Ahmad. Ahmad said the sharp duty increases in the last two Union budgets, aggregat- ing to more than 40%, and the high and increasing rate of state value-added tax have resulted in a drop in demand for authentic cigarettes. According to TII data, the high taxation regime is not only responsible for the legal cigarette industry's sales volume dropping by around 9% in 2013-14, but the excise revenue during the year grew by less than 2%. "On a per kg basis, cigarette taxes are 47 times higher than tax on other tobacco products," TII has noted. In India, cigarettes account for only 15% of the total tobacco consumption while the government collects 85% of its annual revenue in excise and state taxes from "tobacco and allied products" from cigarettes. Industry sources said illegal tax-evad- ed cigarettes now account for as much as 19% of the total industry.

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