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his year, up to 15 percent of the workforce at tobacco-related companies, or more than 23,000 workers, in East Java are at risk of being laid off, more than in 2013-2014.

According to East Java Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) vice chairman Dedi Suhajadi, the number of people working in the tobacco and tobacco products industrial sector (IHT) sector in East Java stood at 159,117 based on 2014 data.

The 2014 IHT workforce also decreased by 21,300 workers from 2013'€™s 180,466 workers.

'€œMany IHT entrepreneurs are affected. This is attributable to the annual increase in tobacco tax, government regulations and groups that interfere with the concentration of IHT entrepreneurs in meeting tax obligations,'€ Dedi said.

The government has raised the IHT tax target from Rp 111.21 trillion (US$8.5 billion) in 2014 to Rp 141.7 trillion in 2015. The average increase in IHT tax stood at 16.09 percent over the past five years.

Based on East Java Manpower and Transmigration Office data in 2014, 790 IHT companies were still operating, but only about 200 were producing on a routine basis, while in 2011, there were about 1,100 cigarette factories, Dedi said.

'€œThose that have gone out of business are small and medium-scale factories. Only the large-scale companies are surviving,'€ said Dedi.

Between 2009 and 2013, the increase in tax reached an average of 16.09 percent, said Dedi, and had led to the closure of 4,900 cigarette factories.

The cigarette industry in East Java contributes the most in terms of revenue from cigarette taxes nationwide, or about 60 percent. Given the drop in production since early this year, Dedi predicted that East Java'€™s contribution in cigarette taxes would also drop.

In 2014, East Java produced 208 billion cigarettes at an average of 17 billion cigarettes monthly. The Directorate General of Customs and Tax recorded national cigarette production in 2014 at 354.478 billion cigarettes.

Dedi predicted that more cigarette factories would go out of business this year. He said the recent Indonesian Women Without Tobacco (WITT) movement declaration could result in a further reduction in the number of cigarette factories.

East Java WITT regional executive board chairperson Arie Suripan Putri refuted that her organization was in any way responsible for the drop in cigarette production in East Java.

'€œThe presence of East Java WITT was not to kill the cigarette industry in East Java. We only wish to reduce the number of smokers in East Java, especially children, teenagers and pregnant women, due to the negative impact on health,'€ said Arie.

She added that WITT data showed that Indonesia had the third-highest number of smokers in the world after China and India. Fifty-three percent of the population are smokers, with 25 percent of them being children and adolescent girls.