Tobacco Cigarettes - China Leads The Pack

by Nicholas Strattberg

Tobacco cigarettes are the most popular type of cigarettes world wide. In recent years there has been an emergence of different types of cigarettes including herb cigarettes as well as nicotine free cigarettes.

However, cigarettes made out of tobacco are still largely popular and overly in charge of the global market. The history of cigarettes clearly shows that tobacco made cigarettes have been in use for decades.

On a global scale trillions of cigarettes are produced in different countries worldwide. The majority of these cigarettes are manufactured and marketed in China.

In the first six months of 2009, China alone consumed up to 1.2 trillion tobacco cigarettes. This is hardly surprising, China has up to 350 million nicotine addicted smokers who press an ever increasing demand on cigarettes yearly. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to 3 million new smokers are added to the Chinese smoking population.

Despite China being a party to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC),the only global health treaty, China cigarette production increased 20 times from 1949 levels. China's population today is 1.3 Billion which it only tripled during this same period.

Most cigarettes in China are local brands. There are efforts to consolidate the industry through mergers. This way there are few leading brands that are emerging.

Due to smoking regulations guided by smoking laws in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed countries, there are clever efforts by the tobacco industry to set up shop or partnerships in China. China has relaxed tobacco regulations.

Smoking regulations have not been implemented with vigor and requisite agency in China. Critics have had no wonder. The government of China controls the body in charge of tobacco production and marketing in that country. In fact yearly the government of China earns up to $9 billion from tobacco cigarette taxes.

Anti smoking groups and experts argues that increasing tobacco cigarette taxes will help in raising government revenue yet at the same time reducing the per-capita smoking population. This approach which is being urged on China has already been successfully applied in Thailand, South Africa, the UK and recently the United States.

China has a great price to pay for being the largest producer and consumer of tobacco made cigarettes. Up to 700 000 avoidable deaths occur yearly from effects of smoking. Up to 60% of men in China smoke and spend a shocking amount of personal income on sustaining the smoking habit.

Even though altogether the tobacco industry creates jobs en-masse, in the long run a third of all young men in China is predicted by the UN to die from smoking illnesses. It remains to be seen if the Chinese population in years to come will lunch a torrent of tobacco lawsuits against their government and tobacco companies as has happened in the United States.

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