Anti-tobacco orgs warns of consequences

Staff Reporter :
British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) wants to export cigarette to Bhutan under the bilateral preferential trade agreement (PTA) that came into effect on 1 July 2022.
BATB has sent a letter addressed to the Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, where it sought the Ministry’s action to include cigarettes in the list of products granted duty-free access to Bhutanese market under the PTA.
Bangladesh and Bhutan signed a PTA on 06 December 2020 to lessen existing trade barriers between the two South Asian countries and facilitate an expansion in the volume of bilateral trade.
Anti-tobacco organizations have long been raising demands to reinstate a 25 percent export duty on tobacco.
Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmed, eminent economist and convener of the National Anti-Tobacco Platform, had previously expressed concern that a pro-export posture with regard to tobacco industry may encourage tobacco cultivation which has severe consequences in the country’s food security and environment.
On one occasion, National Professor Brig Gen (Retd.) Abdul Malik, founder and President of National Heart Foundation of Bangladesh, had said, “To encourage the people of other countries in consuming our cheap tobacco products is unethical.”