Starting on Thursday, smokers will have to pay more for cigarettes, as tobacco firms pass the latest tax hike on to consumers.
Retail prices are expected to increase by between NT$5 and NT$10 per pack to reflect the rising costs, depending on each firm's marketing strategies, officials said.
Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL, 台灣菸酒公司), the nation's sole tobacco manufacturer, appeared cautious due to its state-owned status.
"As a state-run enterprise, we cannot take the lead in hiking prices although price adjustment is inevitable in response to tax law revisions," TTL's president, Chen Wen-kai (
TTL, which manufactures the leading cigarette brand "Long Life" (
Adopting a low-key attitude, TTL chairman Ray Dawn (
Considering the fierce competition, TTL will take into consideration importers' pricing strategies before reaching a final decision, Dawn said.
JT Tobacco International Taiwan Corp (JTI), which distributes one of the best-selling imported brands -- Mild Seven -- has been tight-lipped about the range of possible increases on its products.
An executive of another importer who refused to be named, said pricing is a sensitive issue, and if JTI decides to wage a price war regardless of the tax hike, other importers will have no alternative but to follow suit.
While pricing and the possible market reshuffle hinge on the market mechanism, the government should watch out for the possible surge of cigarette and tobacco smuggling to protect the interests of both consumers and manufacturers, the Tobacco Institute of the Republic of China (
Taiwan started to levy a special health tax on tobacco on Jan. 1, 2002. Statistics showed that cases of confiscated illegal tobacco products soared from 394 cases in 2001 to 1,834 cases in 2002. The value of the smuggled products jumped from NT$195 million in 2001 to NT$340 million in 2002, the institute said.
"This proves that the increase in the health tax on tobacco will cause serious problems as tobacco smuggling will dramatically increase," said Nancy Yin (
Citing an academic study, Yin said when tobacco prices rise by 1 percent, sales of smuggled cigarettes jump by 160 percent.
"We call on the government to reinforce anti-smuggling activities to safeguard the government's tax revenues, manufacturers' interests and consumers' health," she said.
According to the amendments to the Tobacco and Liquor Tax Law (菸酒稅法) passed by the legislature early last month, the special health tax levied on a pack of cigarettes would double from NT$5 to NT$10. However, the actual cost of a pack would increase more than NT$5 as distribution and retail costs will increase and these will be reflected in the price tag as well.
The tax hike is expected to generate NT$6 billion in additional tax revenue for the National Health Insurance program.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day