Health chief suggests laser marking of cigarettes
Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau on Saturday said a laser marker could be printed on individual cigarettes to signify whether duty had been paid.  He made the comment following concerns that demand for smuggled cigarettes would increase, after the government on Wednesday proposed 14 ideas to promote a smoke-free city. They included raising taxes on cigarettes closer to the World Health Organisation (WHO) standard, which is 75 percent of the price.  Speaking to reporters after attending a radio programme, the health chief said the use of laser markers had already been implemented in some countries.  “Some would put it on the cigarette box and some would even put it on individual cigarettes.The advantage of that is that we can easily identify which one has already been subjected to tax, which ones are the illegal cigarettes. “And also consumers, the smokers, would know which are the legal and the illegal ones. That would certainly help us fight against all these illegally imported tobacco products,” he said. Lo also said a real-time adjustment scheme could be put in place, whereby the government automatically adjusts the tax when cigarette prices go up . “At present the tax proportion for the retail price is only about 64 percent. We actually increased the tobacco tax by 31 percent earlier this year. But unfortunately, the tobacco industry also increased their price. That significantly reduced the impact of our tobacco tax increase. “In future, we would like to seek public opinion about whether we should have a scheme to ensure that the proportion of the tax related to the retail price would remain the same. Of course, the final target is to make sure that the tax would account for 75 percent of the retail price,” he added.