Death Marketing-1

Bringing more money and deaths into the country

The government of Bangladesh is welcoming the world’s leading death- trader, Japan Tobacco (JT) group into the country to conduct its business in the name of brining foreign direct investment (FDI). The govt. has permitted this multinational tobacco giant to acquire United Dhaka Tobacco Company Limited (UDTC), the tobacco business of local Akij group, for BDT 124.3 billion ($1.47 billion), as per the agreement signed between these two companies. This move which will eventually put the public health of the country into a larger risk is utterly reprehensible. Multinational tobacco companies adopt product diversification and aggressive marketing strategy to occupy the local market. The youth of the country, in particular, often get attracted to their cunning publicity and marketing strategy. Currently, the youth consist 31 percent of total population of Bangladesh. So, this young generation is the mail target of JT, the fourth largest tobacco company of the world. JT group, while expanding its market into new territories, puts forth the issue of selling so-called ‘safe’ tobacco vapor or e-cigarettes. But in reality, the sole purpose of its business is to create a much larger market for cigarettes. It should be noted that, the sale of cigarettes in Japan is rapidly shrinking and JT’s business in the local market of Japan has saw a decrease of 5.1 percent. Japan’s has just introduced a set of stern tobacco control regulations in recent months, penalizing public smoking heavily which has caused quite a sit. The expansion of JT’s business into other countries with lax tobacco control and govt. mentoring is thought to be a move to offset the shrinking sales at home. This is why Bangladesh, the world’s 8th largest cigarette market, has become a major target place for the company.

Each year about 160,000 people of the country die of diseases caused by tobacco use; hundreds of thousands get sick. Realizing the damage caused by tobacco, The PM of Bangladesh has expressed her commitment to transform Bangladesh into a tobacco-free country by 2040. But the move of welcoming a new tobacco giant to expand its trade into the country is quite contrary to this commitment.