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Foreign firms hooked on smokers
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A worker collects cigarettes at a factory in Surabaya, East Java, recently. (thejakartapost.com/Wahyoe Boediwardhana)
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s someone who has been smoking for three years, 22-yearold Novi Arisandy thinks her habit of smoking a pack a day is normal compared to other smokers. Novi, who completed her undergraduate studies this month, says her father’s addiction to cigarettes is far worse.
“My father can go through two or three packs a day,” she told The Jakarta Post recently. Novi and her father are among millions of Indonesians who are willing to spend money to satisfy their tobacco cravings. With his Rp 6 million (US$449.51) monthly salary, Novi’s father felt it was not a burden for him to spend about Rp 50,000 a day on cigarettes.
A study conducted by the Center for Health Economics and Policy (CHEPS) at the University of Indonesia (UI) found that the average cost for cigarette consumption in the country had reached Rp 37,616 per person per month, with the number of smokers reaching 54.82 million this year.
The lucrative state of the country’s cigarette market, highlighted by the number of smokers, which reaches a fifth of the country’s population, has attracted foreign players to invest in local companies.
It is the world’s second-largest tobacco market, according to Euromonitor International. The fast-growing cigarette market is supported by a loose regulatory environment to curb smoking.
Indonesia is the only Asian country that has yet to sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a treaty to tame harms caused by smoking.
A number of efforts have been carried out to control the rise in cigarette consumption in the past few years, particularly after a video of a toddler fuming dozens of cigarettes went viral and stirred public outcry over measures to discourage smoking.
