Japan Tobacco’s entry to Bangladesh market irks anti-tobacco activists

The news of Japan Tobacco’s steps to buy the tobacco business of Akij Group, Bangladesh’s second-biggest tobacco company, for $1.48 billion has irked anti-tobacco activists.

Nurul Islam Hasibbdnews24.com
Published : 7 August 2018, 06:24 AM
Updated : 7 August 2018, 08:29 PM

PROGGA, a leading anti-tobacco group in Bangladesh, said Japan Tobacco’s presence will “increase the risk of public health since the company will invest a huge amount of money to market their lethal products”.

“This is also contradictory to the prime Minister’s call to free Bangladesh from tobacco menace by 2040,” ABM Zubair, executive director of PROGGA, told bdnews24.com, when asked.

Japan Tobacco is expanding in Bangladesh “because its cigarette sales in Japan has decreased. It happened in all developed countries. So they are taking the chances of developing market which is less regulated”.

Core revenue for the domestic tobacco business in Japan fell by 5.1 percent last year.

“Note that Japan Tobacco is duplicitous. It talks about a ‘safer alternative’, in reality, it is aggressively increasing its cigarette markets in developing countries like Bangladesh,” Zubair said.

Japan Tobacco on Monday said Akij holds a fifth of Bangladesh’s cigarette market, the world’s eighth-largest in the world, and would add about 17 billion units to the Japanese company’s sales volume.

The acquisition of the business, United Dhaka Tobacco Co, is expected to be completed in the third quarter of this year pending regulatory clearance, Japan Tobacco said in a statement.

Japan Tobacco is the world’s fourth-largest tobacco company after China Tobacco, Phillip Morris and British American Tobacco.

Like other tobacco giants, it will also try to allure youths through different marketing strategies and introducing verity of tobacco products which local companies cannot do, according to PROGGA.

“Until now, only one multinational company has been operating in the market.  When two multinationals work in a full-fledged manner, the risk of addiction among youth and death toll will rise,” Zubair said. 

“Ultimately, it will kill more people which were very alarming for public health particularly for the young generation as it accounts for 31 percent of our population.”