Earlier this week, the Ministry of Health reported that Vietnamese smokers spend over VND22 trillion ($1.04 billion) a year on tobacco products, reports Tuoi Tre.
The announcement was made at a meeting in Hanoi where health officials discussed measures to curb smoking, including raising taxes from 65% to 85% by 2018.
Phan Thi Hai, an official from the health ministry’s Vietnam Steering Committee on Smoking and Health (Vinacosh), expressed doubt about the taxation strategy:
“…in the view of Vinacosh, these proposed high taxes would have modest impact on the tobacco consumption as they are still behind the inflation and income per capita growths,” he said.
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According to the Vietnam Tobacco Association, the country consumed 4.174 billion packs of cigarettes in 2012. With a population around 90 million, that’s good for an average of over 46 packs a year per person.
Cigarette smoking has been increasing year on year since 2010, when Vietnamese consumed 3.986 billion packs.
With nearly 50% of males over 15 addicted to cigarettes, Vietnam has one of the highest rates of male tobacco smoking in the world. And, due to the few restrictions on indoor and public smoking, an additional 47 million people are regularly exposed to the cancerous smoke (according to a 2010 global adult tobacco survey).
A recent report from the Ho Chi Minh City Health Education and Communication Center predicted that if no steps are taken, by 2030, 10% of the Vietnamese population will have died from smoking related diseases.
[Photo via Staffan Scherz]
