Public Health on Top

With the financing of tobacco companies, two international research organizations – Euro Monitor International Ltd and the Nelson Company (BD) Ltd. are conducting researches in Bangladesh titled ‘Illicit Cigarettes Market in Bangladesh’ and ‘Bidi Industry and Its Future’ respectively. In fact, to prevent effective price hike of tobacco products on the upcoming National Budget (2017-18), the studies are going on. If bidi price is hiked, bidi factories will be closed and thousands of workers will be unemployed. And, price hike of cigarette will fuel the cigarette smuggling which will cause a huge revenue loss for the government. Actually, to mislead the tax- makers and policymakers, tobacco companies conduct such campaigns before budget each year. This time they have engaged reputed research organizations to advocate for them.
We expect that the tax-makers will work for an effective tobacco price hike by formulating and implementing a simple tobacco tax policy after the declaration from the Premier without being convinced by the tobacco company propagandas.