Higher taxes could deter almost 14 mln Chinese smokers, study suggests
16/12/2008 17:08
About 13.7 million Chinese smokers would probably quit if tobacco taxes
were higher, according to a report from the the Chinese Association on Tobacco
Control (CATC).
The CATC study, reported in today's edition of the Beijing
News, suggested increasing the tax rate by about 11 percentage points, to 51
percent of the retail price.
Internationally, the average cigarette tax rate
was 65-70 percent of the retail price, according to the report, "The Tobacco Tax
and its Potential Impact on China."
The move would help save 3.4 million
lives, the report added.
Higher taxes would also mean the government could
collect about 64.9 billion yuan (about US$9.5 billion) more, it said.
The
report was jointly produced by experts from China's State Administration of
Taxation and the University of California, Berkeley.
About 350 million people
smoke in China, or almost 36 percent of the population aged above 15, and about
one million die of smoking-related ailments annually, the report
said.
"Tobacco use has imposed heavy costs on public health and the economy,"
said Xu Guihua, deputy head of the association. "International experience has
proved that raising tobacco taxes and prices is an effective way to reduce
tobacco consumption among people, the young especially."
CATC suggested that
the tax rate be gradually raised to more than 60 percent of the retail cigarette
price.
Xinhua
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