Raise tax to discourage tobacco use

Speakers at an international summit yesterday stressed the need for increasing tax on tobacco items, with one participant demanding it be by 200 to 300 percent, to control and discourage tobacco consumption in Bangladesh.

They were addressing the closing of the two-day South Asian Speakers' Summit on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), jointly organised by Inter-Parliamentary Union, Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in the city.

"If all of the extra revenue from raising cigarette excise was allocated to government health budgets, then public expenditure on health could increase four percent globally," said Nigar Nargis from American Cancer Society during her powerpoint presentation.

Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Roksana Kader said the government was running mobile courts throughout the year to control tobacco.

She said without controlling tobacco, it would not be possible to achieve the SDGs and that the Bangladesh government was taking all kinds of effective measures to control tobacco.

Bangladesh became a party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on February 27, 2005 and has a tobacco control law and rules, says a summit handout.