Thai Coverage (The Nation) of U.S. Cong letter

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Date: 12/15/98 
Publication: The Nation (Thailand)

                                                  Section: Politics 

       Privatisation of tobacco poses 'serious danger' 

       A GROUP of US House representatives and senators are opposed to the
plan to privatise
       the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (TTM), saying the move would have
''serious public-health
       consequences''. 

       The concern was expressed in a joint letter to Michel Camdessus,
managing director of the
       International Monetary Fund (IMF). 

       In its fifth letter of intent, dated Aug 25, to the IMF, the Thai
government pledged to privatise
       the tobacco state enterprise by the first quarter of next year. 

       ''Whatever the merits of privatisation of other sectors, tobacco
represents a grave
       public-health menace and must be treated differently. Policies
relating to tobacco should be
       guided by public-health considerations,'' said the letter, signed by
14 US representatives and
       three senators. 

       It added that the experience in breaking open other Asian tobacco
markets to foreign imports
       illustrated the pros and cons. ''After the misguided US pressure
forced open markets in
       Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand, smoking rates rose by 10 per
cent more than they
       should have,'' it said. The figure was cited from the econometric
analyses done by Prof Frank
       Chaloupka of the University of Illinois. 

       ''In time the increase will lead to thousands of preventable deaths
and excessive spending on
       health-care resources to treat tobacco-related diseases,'' the letter
said. 

       The group also urged the IMF to adopt a policy of giving public
health priority over other
       considerations in tobacco-related matters. It also urged the
international financial body to
       review the impact of its structural adjustment policies on
tobacco-related and other
       public-health concerns and to ensure that economic restructuring did
not contribute to
       preventable diseases and death. 

       In a statement released on Monday, Dr Hatai Chitanondh, president of
the Thailand Health
       Promotion Institute, said the congressmen's letter was a result of
his contacts and his
       lobbying of the group in October. 

       Hatai said his studies showed that privatisation of
tobacco-manufacturing companies across
       the globe resulted in an increase in the number of smokers, more than
half of the tobacco
       firms working under capacity, farmers becoming either unemployed or
poorer and the state
       losing billions of baht worth of income from tobacco and import tax. 

       ''Moreover if foreign companies are allowed to take over [TTM],
Thailand's anti-smoking
       campaign, which has been successful so far, will collapse,'' Hatai said. 

       He added that he had explained the consequences of the TTM
privatisation to all Thai
       associations related to tobacco industries and all had agreed to
oppose the government's
       initiative because it was a matter of grave consequence because it
would affect more than
       7,000 TTM employees, half a million tobacco farmers and their of
their family members to the
       number of 1.5 million. 

       ''Most importantly, I don't want to see more Thais die from
smoking,'' said Hatai, a former
       Ministry of Health official, who sent a similar protest letter to
World Bank President James
       Wolfersohn.