TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsBig tobacco woos small shops
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
A worker collects cigarettes at a factory in Surabaya, East Java, recently. (thejakartapost.com/Wahyoe Boediwardhana)
It was an offer that Suliyati Sanaf, a small shopkeeper in Kalibata, South Jakarta, could hardly resist.
In early 2014, she was approached by a salesman from a major tobacco firm and promised various incentives if she was willing to sell its cigarettes and display its brand in her shop.
The company offered to give her up to Rp 1.5 million (US$112) a year for displaying some of the company’s cigarette brands on a shelf that was immediately visible from the shop’s entrance.
“In addition to that, every three months, I was also given various electronic devices, such as a TV, speakers and a DVD Player. I received a wide-screen 41-inch TV,” Suliyati told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Displaying the company’s cigarette brands and installing its banner was all she had to do according to a contract, which she had to renew annually.
She said she was not required to write periodical reports, and even though the Jakarta administration banned outdoor cigarette ads in 2015, her cooperation with the tobacco firm continued.
“The incentives are based on sales. The more empty cigarette packs I can show them, the more incentives I get.”
