Vietnam appeases Big Tobacco with toothless taxes

Vietnam’s latest bid to raise its tobacco taxes will do little to curb consumption because it fails to hit the country’s die-hard smokers where they hurt most – their pockets, health groups say. At a meeting of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly – Vietnam’s legislature – on Thursday, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung put forth a proposal to raise the excise tax on tobacco from 65 percent to 70 percent in January 2016 and 75 percent in 2019.

The finance ministry said the 2010 Global Adult Tobacco Survey found that around 15.3 million people actively smoke in Vietnam, exposing an estimated 46.8 million, mostly women and children, to secondhand smoke. Smoking caused around 40,000 deaths in Vietnam in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, which warned that this figure could surge to 70,000 by the end of 2030 if drastic measures are not taken.