Public Health on Top

A number of tobacco companies and tobacco industry related associations, including British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB), Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Locally Owned Cigarette Manufacturers' Association and Bangladesh Bidi Factory Owners' Association, have very recently met the National Board of Revenue (NBR) in a pre-budget discussion for upcoming FY 2025-26 where these companies and trade bodies raised their own demands. Cigarette companies claimed that raising prices of cigarettes leads to smuggling, illicit trade, and proliferation of counterfeit products, thus causing revenue loss for the government. According to a World Bank report titled Confronting Illicit Tobacco Trade: A Global review of Country Experiences, the increase in tobacco taxes has barely any relation with illicit trade of cigarettes and the percentage of illicit trade of tobacco in Bangladesh stands at merely 1.8 percent, the lowest in 27 countries. The World Bank data also suggests that Bangladesh is one of those countries where cigarettes are sold at the cheapest prices. Even the cheapest cigarettes in India cost more than twice when compared to that of Bangladesh. So, it is far from the truth that raising prices of cigarettes would lead to a massive spike in illicit trade and smuggling. Bangladesh Bidi Owners Association urged the reduction of supplementary duty on bidis and made a baseless claim that the total number of bidi workers in Bangladesh is 1.8 million. However, a 2019 study conducted by NBR reveals that the number of full-time bidi workers, including regular, irregular and contractual, stands only at 46,916.

We hope the government will not allow itself to get derailed by coordinated disinformation campaign by tobacco companies and implement the budget proposals raised by anti-tobacco organizations in the upcoming FY 2025-26. This would add an additional BDT 20,000 crore to the government's revenue earnings, and in the long term, would prevent premature deaths of 1.7 million lives which also includes about 900,000 youths.