China's tobacco industry boasts that it contributes as much as
60 percent of the country's total consumption tax, but people are
beginning to wake up to the real cost of smoking and the harm the
industry does to national health.
A report released by the China Center for Economic Research at
Peking University at the end of last year put the direct cost of
smoking in China, including smoking-induced diseases, at 166.56
billion yuan in 2005, and the indirect cost -- losses due to work
delays, passive smoking, fires, environmental pollution and early
death -- at about 86.11-120.5 billion yuan.
Taken together, the figures exceed the tobacco industry's total
revenue of 240 billion yuan for that year as declared by the State
Tobacco Monopoly Administration. This means that the industry costs
the country more than it makes. The tobacco monopoly may be making
handsome profits but the country as a whole is burning up its money
and turning it to ashes.
The country's consumption tax on tobacco grew by 14.3 percent
over the previous year as sales revenue built on expanding
production and dwindling stocks.
Cigarettes sold in China can be priced as low as two yuan a
pack, or as high as 2,500 yuan a pack. A migrant worker may choose
a brand priced at around two yuan a pack. An urban office worker
with a monthly income of 4000 yuan may spend 200 yuan every month
to buy cigarettes priced at around 10 yuan a pack.
As the world's largest producer and consumer of tobacco, the
country's 350 million smokers, including 50 million teenagers,
consume a third of the world's total cigarettes annually.
Smoking is among the main causes of many chronic diseases in
China, says Kong Lingzhi, vice director general of the disease
control department under the Ministry of Health. About 700,000
people die every year of smoking-induced diseases in China.
Although China levies heavy taxes on the tobacco industry,
little is spent on publicizing the harm of smoking or on the
treatment of smoking-induced diseases. Some local governments are
tempted by the high tax revenue from the tobacco industry to
acquiesce in advertising.
Despite the fact that "No Smoking" signs hang in many public
places like trains, more and more youngsters are becoming smokers,
and people are constantly targeted by disguised tobacco
advertisements and snapshots of smoking popping up on TV or in
films.
Furthermore, China's monopoly cigarettes companies see little
reason to innovate technologically to reduce the harm of cigarettes
-- no one is threatening them and standards are relatively lax.
In China, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and China
Tobacco Corporation monopolize the tobacco industry and manage the
nationwide production, sales, import and export of tobacco.
Companies engaged in the tobacco business need to get a license
from the authority.
Smoking claimed nearly one million people's lives in 2000,
accounting for 12 percent of the year's total deaths. Without
further control measures on smoking, the ratio will rise to 33
percent by 2020 with the death toll reaching two million, Kong
Lingzhi warned.
(Xinhua News Agency March 2, 2007)