Fighting big tobacco
In a rare challenge to one of the mainland’s most powerful institutions, a scholar has proposed the scrapping of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration and allowing private companies to compete on an equal basis in this lucrative sector. Zou Fangbin, an economics professor at the Guangdong University of Business Studies, says the monopoly discriminates against smokers and tobacco farmers, gives excessive wages and benefits to STMA officials, and encourages corruption and smuggling.
Established in January 1984, the STMA is one of the two biggest cigarette producers in the world, with Altria – the parent company of Philip Morris – in terms of sales revenue. . . .
One of the best-known anti-tobacco campaigners in the mainland is Yang Gonghuan, deputy director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in the Ministry of Health.
“The issue is not the monopoly but the separation of the government from the tobacco producers, as demanded by the World Health Organisation,” she said.
“How can someone supervise an industry in which he has a financial stake?”
She referred to article five, section three of the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which Beijing has signed: it took effect on January 1. . . .
In its latest report on tobacco, published on May 31, Dr Yang’s centre said the STMA was not implementing regulations set out by WHO convention.
