Clear The Air News Tobacco Blog Rotating Header Image

October, 2010:

LB Bromley: Tackling the supply of illicit tobacco

Download (PDF, 941KB)

British American Tobacco set to spook politicians on blackmarket tobacco

Simon Chapman, Professor of Public Health, University of Sydney             13/10/10

http://www.ashaust.org.au/lv4/BATvidChapman1010.htm

The tobacco industry has much to lose with plain packaging. So far it’s put a match to three consecutive failures to explode. First we had the widely ridiculed effort from a BAT sponsored PWC report in February to convince Canberra than one in eight cigarettes smoked in Australia today were blackmarket, duty-not-paid.  Then we had the embarrassing efforts of the IPA to argue that that it would all end in big tears in court when the tobacco industry would successfully sue the government. Most recently, we saw the recent rapidly aborted TV campaign trying to convince us that plain packaging “would not work” (which is why the industry was spending A$5m to tell us that).

The next wave of the  tobacco industry’s panicked assault on plain packaging of tobacco products is about to commence with a DVD, now on British American Tobacco’s website about to be mailed to all MPs. The 6m52s high production video dramatises the lines that display bans (now adopted by over 40 nations), plain packs, tax increases and banning additives will all contribute to crime, terrorism and prostitution. It’s got everything from a cheesy script, an eastern European drug dealer stereotype (Middle Eastern might have been too much!), gormless, idealistic, and clueless European Union bureaucrat and shifty English bad guy.

The entire premise is that these control measures will be manna from heaven for organised crime: “Plain packs – easy for us to copy .. no logos to match .. easier to counterfeit .. lots more profit” says a fingernail removing Budapest crime boss from the back of a limo.

Copying branded packs has never been a barrier to tobacco counterfeiters. On the streets of many chaotic low and middle income nations, they are openly sold in shops and through street vendors because of chaotic law enforcement and corruption .  I recently edited a research paper from Tehranshowing that 21% of cigarettes are smuggled there.

But that’s not remotely the situation in Australia nor most OECD nations. Forecasts of massive black markets assume that smokers will be able to access these products with the ease that they today are able to buy cigarettes from every second shop. But if your ordinary smoker in the suburbs is able to so easily locate blackmarket tobacco, what would be stopping the police from doing exactly the same if it’s all so easy? All smokers reading this ask yourselves how easy would it be for you to access illegal tobacco products this afternoon. Most would not have a clue because it’s actually quite hard to find.

As I argued in Crikey in February, the obvious answer is that blackmarket tobacco is not flourishing in Australia. The tobacco industry campaign is bluster from start to finish because it knows fully well the this is the biggest Armageddon that will ever rain down on it, consigning tobacco promotion’s last bastion to history.  Plain packs passes the scream test with flying colours. When the industry applauds or ignores an initiative, it’s time for a rethink. But when it behaves like it’s about to haemorrhage sales, you’re on target.

Misinformation about tobacco flavours

http://www.fctc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=412:misinformation-on-tobacco-flavours&catid=183:news&Itemid=214

05 October 2010

FCA responds to misinformation being spread by organisations of tobacco growers about draft guidelines on tobacco flavours prepared for the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which will be held in Uruguay in November.

In a factsheet and question-answer document, FCA clarifies that the guidelines are designed to remove additives that make tobacco products attractive to youth. It also explains that the guidelines do not ban particular types of tobaccobut recommend that Parties to the FCTC “restrict or prohibit” flavourings

[ Print Now ]

[ Close Window ]

WEBSITE: www.mmegi.bw
DATE: Friday, 24 June 2011   (Vol. 28, No. 93)
Non-core exports reach P365m

MBONGENI MGUNI
STAFF WRITER

The value of BEDIA-assisted exports – which are considered representative of the country’s non-core exports – reached P365 million last year, powering into new African markets and commodities. Besides its more well-known investment promotion mandate, BEDIA’s export enterprise development wing had a busy 2010 with the P365 million in facilitated exports exceeding targets by 41 percent.

Article Tools
Comments Share this!!!
E-mail a friend Print

Leading exports assisted by BEDIA include soda ash and salt, tobacco flavours, condoms, military gear, polyethylene tanks and pipes as well as mealie meal, wheat and pasta products. Other marginal exports included electrical cabling.

BEDIA Corporate Services Director, Lameck Nthekela, revealed that within the value of exports for last year, soda ash and salt from Botash accounted for 55 percent while mealie-meal, wheat and pasta products mainly from Bolux Milling comprised about 26 percent.

Other major contributors included flavoured tobacco at nine percent, condoms at five percent and military gear at one percent.

“A company in Francistown is producing the tobacco flavours and they are exporting this to Hong Kong and Japan,” Nthekela said. “The company producing condoms is exporting mainly to South Africa, as is the one producing military type gear such as caps and helmets for soldiers.”

“Bolux Milling’s products such as macaroni, spaghetti and even paleche have made inroads into the DRC, Namibia and Angola, while another company called Flo Tek is exporting polyethylene tanks and pipes to Angola.” Nthekela said other export destinations included Malawi and Zimbabwe for salt. “We also have an upcoming company involved in aluminium pots and pans, but at the moment, they are yet to export,” he said.

The encouraging figures for non-core exports suggest some headway being made by the non-mining manufacturing sector in line with economic diversification.

Together with the services sector led by the multi-billion Pula tourism and hospitality sector, non-mining continues to widen the country’s GDP base. Numerous economists have stressed that non-mining exports were essential as the principal mining commodities such as diamonds and base metals are frequently exposed to the vagaries of global markets.

BEDIA figures are considered representative of the less prominent exports emerging from the market as the country’s major statistics bodies, the Bank of Botswana and Statistics Botswana, mainly produce data on major commodities.</P< span>

http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=4&aid=1827&dir=2011/June/Friday24