Tobacco products made even cheaper in budget: Experts

Staff Reporter :
The proposed national budget for FY 2023-24, will once again make tobacco products cheaper than essential commodities.
It will encourage the youth into using tobacco products, increase tobacco-related deaths and illness, and therefore spike the public health expenditure of the government. The proposed budget, being at odds with the proposals of anti-tobacco activists, will cause the government to lose the chances of earning additional revenues and will also hinder the realization of a tobacco-free Bangladesh, as envisioned by the Honorable Prime Minister.
In his reaction to the proposed national budget, ABM Zubair, Executive Director of PROGGA, said, “The base or retail price of low-tier cigarettes, which holds 75 percent of cigarette market share, has seen a negligible change.”
He said, “We demand that the government impose higher specific taxes on this tier and bring cigarettes out of the affordability of the people.”
The expert said the proposed budget has increased the prices of 10 sticks of low-tier cigarettes from BDT 40 to BDT 45, which shows an increase of only BDT 0.50 (12.50 percent) in the price per stick. As the budget has proposed to increase only the base price and to keep the supplementary duty (SD) virtually unchanged, a large portion of the additional revenue will be pocketed by tobacco companies.
The prices for 10 sticks of medium-tier and high-tier cigarettes have been increased to BDT 67 from existing BDT 65 (3.08 percent increase) and to BDT 113 from existing BDT 111 (1.80 percent increase) respectively in the proposed budget.