From a pagoda in southwest China, tourists have observed the immense local cigarette factory, a source of a high health price in the country but remains an economic lung for this disadvantaged region. The country has a third of smokers on the planet and tobacco -related diseases are a great cause of mortality. China expects to reduce consumption by 2030, an objective that faces the interests of the powerful state monopoly and local communities whose finances depend on cigarettes.
This paradox is illustrated in Yuxi, in the province of Yunnan, where agriculture and tourism have the very important tobacco culture to develop this relatively rural region. Tobacco represented almost a third of local GDP in the first quarter of 2022, according to official figures.
His family can win up to 60,000 yuan (7,340 euros) annually thanks to tobacco, much more than with more fluctuating crops.
Tobacco also attracts a growing number of tourists in Yuxi, who come to visit the producer of Cigarettes Hongta (“Red Pagoda”), one of the best known brands in China. The name of the centennial pagoda of the city, originally white but repaired in red by the communists, the company is a subsidiary of the state company of China tobacco, which has the monopoly of the sector. Hongta offers tourists in particular visits to his factory and a tobacco museum. “The cigarettes are famous, so we wanted to come to see,” said Dong, a northeast tourist in the country.
Interest
China is the main world producer and tobacco consumer, with more than 300 million smokers according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The prohibition of smoking in closed places is better applied than before, especially in metropolitan areas. But smoke is still common in certain cybercafés, hotels, restaurants or public bathrooms, often in less developed places.
The government wants to reduce the participation of smokers in the population by 2030 in around 25%. But progress is laborious. According to a Chinese study published last year, the number of smokers between 2010 and 2022 only fell by 14%, a significantly lower reduction than the average of developed countries.
Authorities should also treat China’s interests, which practically controls all the production, processing and distribution of tobacco. The sector generated 1,600 billion yuan (196 billion euros) last year in earnings and tax statements. The National Tobacco Monopoly Administration, the sector’s regulator, was criticized by researchers as, in reality, only a simple tobacco facade of China presented under another name. Therefore, the largest national cigarette manufacturer would also be its own regulator.
“Smoking less”
According to a recent study, the cost of smoking in China, estimated at 2020 to 2,430 billion yuan (297 billion euros), exceeds the economic profits generated by the sector in approximately 1.6 times. “Strict anti -bacc policies could reduce the prevalence of smoking without seriously damaging public revenues,” said Qinghua Nian, a bioestadistist of the University of Bloomberg Public Health of Johns Hopkins (United States).
The initiatives to limit smoking in China coincide with the expansion abroad of companies in the sector. According to the UN, Chinese tobacco and derived exports exceeded at 2023 the $ 9 billion (8 billion euros), against less than 1.5 billion five years before. But cigarettes seem to lose their appeal to young people. “It’s better to smoke less,” said Dong, the tourist met in the Red Pagoda. “My children and grandchildren do not smoke at all.” Not far from there, Mr. Long monitors tobacco plants.
Source: BFM TV
