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Health News: Tobacco Giants Target
Subject: Health News: Tobacco Giants Target Asia
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Health: Tobacco Giants Target Asia
Inter Press Service
22-OCT-98
GENEVA, (Oct. 21) IPS - Transnational tobacco corporations
are now
targeting markets in Asia and other developing regions to
offset the
losses caused by the crash in consumption in the United
States and
western Europe, Asian consumer associations denounced at an
international health conference in this Swiss city.
Demand for cigarettes waned at a rate of 4.5 percent from
1990 to
1995 in the United States, while climbing eight percent in
Asia, Mary
Assunta Kolandai with the Consumers Association of Penang,
Malaysia told a seminar convened this week by the World
Health
Organization (WHO).
There is a real risk that southeast Asia could become a
dumping
ground for tobacco companies whose maneuvering room is being
increasingly curbed in industrialized countries, warned Z.
Jadamba,
WHO's director of regional promotion in southeast Asia.
WHO Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland protested at the
conference that transnational tobacco corporations were
stepping up
their direct investment in developing countries.
The U.S.-based Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco
company,
sells three times more cigarettes abroad than at home,
taking in $4.5
billion from sales outside of the United States alone, said
Kolandai.
The tobacco giants are scrambling to conquer markets
recently
opened in Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Vietnam, "not to mention
China's 300 million smokers," she added.
The proportion of adult male smokers in Vietnam has shot up
to 73
percent, one of the world's highest levels. In neighboring
Cambodia,
86 percent of men in rural areas smoke, compared to 65
percent in
cities. And in China, 66 percent of men smoke, compared to a
mere
four percent of women, according to the statistics presented
by
Kolandai.
The proportion of women smokers in Asia is still low,
although the
tobacco industry has its sights set on expanding that
market. In india,
women are the targets of aggressive marketing campaigns by
foreign
tobacco firms, which have launched several "women's brands."
In Malaysia, where 60 percent of men and five percent of
women
smoke, the proportion of smokers is growing at an annual
rate of two
percent, while 90 percent of the market is dominated by
foreign
companies.
The three biggest cigarette companies in Malaysia are Pall
Mall's
Rothmans, with a corner on 55 percent of the market, RJ
Reynolds
Berhad, with 18 percent, and the Malaysian Tobacco Company
-- a
subsidiary of British American Tobacco -- with 15 percent.
But demand is not only limited to adults. Asian minors have
been
increasingly acquiring the habit, according to Jadamba's
report. In
many countries, that increase has offset the number of
adults who have
successfully quit smoking, the WHO official lamented.
A survey carried out last year in Bangladesh found that
around 12
percent of 10 to 14-year-olds and 23 percent of 15 and
16-year-olds
smoked. The highest smoking rate among minors was seen in
Indonesia -- 33 percent of 15 to 19-year-olds.
In Asia, the highest number of addicts are found among the
poor. In
Bangladesh a full 80 percent of rickshaw-pullers smoke,
while a
similar proportion of street vendors, laborers and drivers
were found to
smoke in Sri Lanka.
A rise in tobacco-related health and social problems has
accompanied the increase in smoking, said Jadamba. In India,
an
estimated 12 million cases a year of cancer, heart disease,
lung
ailments and respiratory infections are directly attributed
to tobacco
use and could be avoided. Cancer statistics from India
indicate that
nearly 50 percent of cancer cases in men and 25 percent in
women
are related to tobacco use.
In Thailand, two-thirds of cancer cases among men and nearly
half
among women are attributed to tobacco use.
Kolandai said that far from granting priority attention to
the growing
problem of tobacco use, governments in Asia protect and
promote the
tobacco business.
In Malaysia, where "we are trying to revitalize the economy
in the midst
of the crisis sweeping Asia, we clearly cannot confront the
additional
burden of tobacco-related diseases, especially since they
are
avoidable."
The consumer activist recommended that laws putting limits
on what
tobacco companies can or cannot do in the United States and
Great
Britain, where the tobacco giants are based, should
incorporate an
international component. Since control measures are
non-existent in
developing countries, transnational corporations are free to
engage in
practices that they are careful to avoid back home, she
pointed out.
Kolandai also protested the use of "free trade" arguments
and threats
of unilateral commercial sanctions to force developing
nations to open
their markets to tobacco products, such as occurred in
Taiwan, South
Korea, Japan and Thailand.
Industrialized nations must assume a leadership role in
promoting
smoking prevention and control measures abroad, she argued.
Moreover, governments should put an end to subsidies for
tobacco
farmers, she added. In 1997, the European Union subsidized
tobacco
production to the tune of $1.14 billion, while the United
States spent
$235 million to bolster prices for tobacco farmers in 1993.
In Asia, meanwhile, tobacco companies are keeping cigarette
prices
low, within the reach of students and the poor. A packet of
20
cigarettes, which costs an average of $6.62 in Norway, $5.02
in Great
Britain and $3.40 in the United States, can be bought for
$1.93 in
China and just one dollar in Malaysia.