TOBACCO TAX CONTROL PROJECT IN FIVE SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES

KUALA LUMPUR, March 2 (Bernama) -- The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control
Alliance (SEATCA) will provide Southeast Asian policymakers with research-based
evidence on improving tax systems for tobacco control in five targeted
countries.

The research will be funded by a five-year US$7 million (RM23.7 million)
grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and will focus on tobacco tax
control in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Director of the Bangkok-based SEATCA, Bungon Ritthiphakdee said higher
taxes on tobacco led to higher prices for tobacco products, which immediately
discouraged non-smokers from starting and current smokers from continuing with
their harmful habit.

"By 2014, we hope to see Asean governments having strengthened their tobacco
tax systems. This would increase revenues from tobacco taxes while
simultaneously having reduced tobacco consumption, thereby improving public
health," he said in a statement Tuesday.

Asean is home to almost 574 million people and almost 31 per cent (about
125.8 million) of the adult population are smokers which is equivalent to about
10 per cent of the world's smoking population.

The region also accounts for almost 10 per cent of smoking related deaths
worldwide.
-- BERNAMA