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Sweet but deadly: Indonesia mulls sugary drink tax to curb rise of diabetes, obesity
With diabetes and obesity on rise in the past decade, a plan to slap excise duties on sweet drinks has been revived, with Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati recently saying that Indonesia should follow other countries in enforcing such measures against the "dangerous goods".
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Indonesia plans to impose excises on plastics, fossil fuel vehicles and sweet drinks to reduce their adverse environmental and health effects, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati has said. (Shutterstock/zhang kan)
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or 23-year-old creative worker Benediktus Andre Setyawan, going without sweet tea would be "strange, like something is missing”.
He attributed his sweet tooth to being brought up consuming powdered and condensed milk.
Almost every day, he buys himself a 350 ml bottle of iced tea that contains 20 grams of sugar. Though still below the Health Ministry's recommended daily sugar intake of 50 grams, he gets his fill from the coffee sachets he drinks at work.
"I feel like my habit of consuming sweet drinks is not dangerous, as I am quite physically active," Andre said on Thursday.
