http://www.ejinsight.com/20161209-hong-kong-leads-mainland-in-war-to-cut-smoking/
When a person goes to buy a packet of cigarettes in Hong Kong, he or she faces two obstacles. One is the price — Double Happiness at HK$43 and Marlboro at HK$57 — the result of a tobacco tax up to 68 per cent of the price.
The other is the hideous image on the packet of the worst consequences of smoking.
A survey by the Economic Intelligence Unit earlier this year ranked Hong Kong as the eighth most expensive city in the world for a packet of branded cigarettes, at US$7.48.
Top was London with US$14.30, followed by New York with US$13.67 and Singapore with US$9.15.
These two measures, along with the creation of smoke-free areas in public and work places, have been effective in cutting the number of smokers.
According to government figures, the percentage of daily cigarette smokers aged 15 and above in Hong Kong in 2015 was 10.5 percent, down from 10.7 percent in 2012 and 23.3 per cent in the early 1980s.
The mainland, the world’s largest tobacco market with 316 million smokers in 2015, has only recently started to learn the lessons of Hong Kong.
Since 2010, the number of smokers has increased by 15 million and cigarette production risen by 35 per cent.
The health warnings are written, not visual, and appear modestly at the bottom of the packet. They would not frighten any first-time user.
In 2015, China increased the tobacco tax to 40 per cent. Consumption tax from tobacco in 2015 was 536 billion yuan, an increase of 60 billion from a year earlier. The recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is that the tax should be 70 per cent of the retail price.
“There is certainly room for future tobacco tax increase,” said Jian Shi, director of the information office of the Taxation Research Institute at the State Administration of Taxation in Beijing.
“In some western countries, the tobacco tax rate has reached 70-80 per cent. The room for the increase needs to be considered based on the development goal of the industry and the condition of national revenue.”
Health professionals argue that increasing the tobacco tax is the quickest and most effective way to cut smoking — by both preventing young people from starting and encouraging smokers to quit.
According to WHO figures, each increase of 10 per cent in the price will cause 3.7 per cent of adults and 9.3 per cent of teenagers to stop smoking.
Antonio Kwong Cho-shing, chairman of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Public Health, said that selective or modest hikes would not make much of an impression on smoker numbers in Hong Kong.
“Only a 100 per cent increase in tobacco tax would induce people to quit smoking,” he said. If the government accepted this proposal, an average pack would cost HK$119.
The Department of Health has proposed an enlargement of the health warning.
It said on Nov. 23 that the area of the graphic health warning shall be of a size that covers at least 85 percent of the two largest surfaces of the packet or the retail container and that the number of forms of health warning should be increased from six to 12.
The situation in the mainland is years behind. The biggest obstacle is that the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA), the world’s biggest manufacturer of cigarettes, is also the industry regulator.
This is despite years of lobbying by China’s health professionals, the WHO and the norms practised around the world. They argue that the two must be separate institutions.
According to WHO figures, 1.2 million die each year in China from smoking-related diseases; this number will double by 2025.
Jian Shi put it succinctly. “The major difficulty lies in that the related departments have quite different views on this matter, and it is difficult for them to reach agreement on this matter. That will cause obstruction to policy making and implementation.”
The STMA opposes graphic health warnings and higher taxes because they would hurt its sales and profits. Yet, simply due to global population expansion, there will be more smokers in 2040 than there are today, so it is difficult to believe that this concern is genuine.
The health lobby has had some success, in the modest increase in tobacco tax and restrictions on smoking in indoor public areas and workplaces and some outdoor areas introduced in Beijing in June 2015. Other mainland cities have taken similar measures at different times.
On Dec. 6, the Beijing Commission of Health and Family Planning said that more than 2,700 people had been fined for violating these restrictions, with total fines of 142,500 yuan, as of Nov. 30 this year.
Professor Dr Judith Mackay, based in Hong Kong and Asia’s leading anti-tobacco campaigner, said that the price of cigarettes in China is still extremely low.
“The latest small tobacco tax increase, while laudable, will not have a serious, sustained effect on reducing smoking. It is time to review the whole tobacco tax structure in China, significantly increase the price of cigarettes and thus protect the health of the Chinese people.
“In Australia, there is a regular increase of 12.5 per cent tobacco excise tax every year. The cost of a packet could soon rise to A$40 (HK$230). Hong Kong and China should both consider long-term tobacco tax planning in this way, so that tobacco control proceeds in an orderly form, and immense energy and time is not wasted year by year in campaigning for a tax increase. Otherwise, thousands will die.”