[Intl-tobacco] China's Tobacco Industry Must Reduce Tar (fwd)

[Robert Weissman]

China's Tobacco Industry Must Reduce Tar
Source: Tobacco China, Tuesday, 3/28/00

China's tobacco industrial circle is discussing a hot topic: the country
should quickly reduce cigarette tar in a bid to maintain its target of the
weighted average of 15 mg. A related authoritative person noted that, with
the acceleration of China's access to WTO, the process of
internationalization of the domestic market is being sped up. China's
tobacco industry will face with a lash of foreign low-tar and mix-type
cigarette. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to cut cigarette
tar, which concerns about the survival and development of tobacco
industry.

Health is the prerequisite of the existence and development of the
mankind. To reduce the affection of smoking to people's health, the fifth
article of the "Law the People's Republic of China on Tobacco Monopoly"
stipulates that the state strengthens scientific research and technical
development of tobacco monopoly products to raise the quality of tobacco
products and cut tar and contents of other harmful elements.

When it worked out the Ninth Five-Year Plan of scientific and technology
development of the tobacco industry, the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau
listed the tar reduction into one of the ten scientific research projects
being carried during the 1996-2000 period; and has since launched a
massive drive to reduce cigarette tar across the country.

Meanwhile, it clearly put forward the cut of China's cigarette tar within
15 mg by the end of 2000. In 1998, the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau
called for giving priority to the development of low-tar and mix-type
cigarette, and disposed the work at the national tobacco working meeting
in 1999.

In an interview, Ren Min, Director of the Department of Science and
Education under the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, briefed on the
situation of the change of China's cigarette tar over the past decade.

He said that from 1989 to 1999, the amount of cigarette tar in China was
cut from 21.53 mg to 16.62 mg, an average drop of 0.5 mg a year. The
change could be divided into three stages. The first stage from 1990 to
1992 was a stage, which witnessed a rapid drop of tar content by 2.5 to 3
mg from 21.85 mg to 18.89 mg.

One reason for the reduction was a big increase of filtered cigarette.
During the second stage from 1992 to 1996, the cigarette tar maintained at
18-19 mg level. Until 1997, when the new state standard was put into
effect, the industry employed many tar reduction techniques to cut tar
content. During the third period from 1996 to 1999, the amount of tar went
down steadily from 18.5 mg to 16.1 mg (the lowest level in the third
quarter of 1999), an average of 0.8 mg a year.

According to data of the quality examination of cigarette products in 1999
(by the end of November), a survey on 1,835 trademarks of 155 cigarette
enterprises, the average tar content reached 16.62 mg, of which tar of
brand cigarette averaged 16.8. The annual tar dropped steadily from 17.0
mg in the first quarter to 16.1 mg in the third quarter.

The proportion of cigarette with tar content under 16 mg went up from
38.37 percent to 48.1 percent; and that of cigarette with tar content over
18 mg declined from 24 percent to 18.4 percent.

Preliminary statistics show that there were a dozen trademarks of
cigarette with tar content under 12 mg. Included are Zhongnanhai, Kalei,
Hongshuangxi, Hongmei, Gaolei, Linhailingzhi and Techunshish.

Director Ren Min was confident of China's realization of tar weight
average of 15 mg by the end of 2000.He said that, according to the data of
1999, the number of trademarks of cigarette with tar under 15 mg accounted
for 18 percent of the total, and the proportion of brand name cigarette
also approached the figure.

The examination result in the third quarter of 1999 showed that the
proportion of cigarette with tar below 15 mg increased to 29 percent. If
production of these products maintains stable, we may regard that the
amount of tar of one third of the present trademark cigarette is between
15 mg and 16.4 mg.

With the speed of tar reduction over the past two years and faster speed
in the coming years, the tar content of 15 mg for these products can be
reached by the end of 2000. In this case, the number of trademark
cigarette with tar content of 15 mg will approach 60 percent by the end of
2000. If these products occupy the leading position of the gross output,
the target to reduce tar content by the end of 2000 is realistic.

According to Director Ren Min, to ensure the realization of the target in
2000, it is a must to concentrate on the work in major cigarette producing
provinces, enterprises and products with large market shares.

He noted that, in line with the tar weighted average of the provincial
statistics in the third quarter of 1999, the Department of Science and
Education under the State Tobacco Monopoly Bureau listed 15 provinces,
municipalities and autonomous regions with tar weighted average around 16
mg. They were Sichuan, Chongqing, Beijing, Heilongjiang, Shanghai,
Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Xinjiang, Yunnan, Hubei, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan,
Henan and Guizhou. According to the industrial aggregate in 1998, the
output of the 15 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions
accounted for 70 percent of the total ; and the tar weighted average was
215.69 mg.

It is worth attention that 78 cigarette enterprises under statistics,
which were enterprises with weak technical force, made breakthrough in tar
reduction work after hard efforts.

According to authoritative sources, the United States, European
Communities and other countries and regions all have experienced a key
development period of cutting tar content, and this is an inexorable trend
for the world's tobacco development. To face with the challenge of the
international market after joining WTO, China must accelerate the process
of reducing cigarette tar to limit the gap between China and the
internationalized market as quick as possible.