YANGON, Myanmar — As some of
the world's biggest companies trumpet their arrival in Asia's hottest
frontier market, the tobacco industry has a different strategy: It's
slipping into Myanmar without fanfare.
The impoverished nation of
60 million people emerged from a half-century of isolation and brutal
military rule two years ago. With most international sanctions against
the country lifted or suspended, foreign businesses from Coca-Cola and
Unilever to Suzuki Motors have scrambled to get in.
So too has Big Tobacco but without the ribbon cuttings or grandly worded press announcements.
British
American Tobacco, the world's second largest cigarette manufacturer,
shepherded a select audience of government officials to a low key
ceremony last month where it formalized a $50 million investment over
five years to produce, market and sell its brands in Myanmar. Its
factory, to be built on the outskirts of Yangon, will create about 400
jobs.
Japan Tobacco, No. 3 globally, quietly inked a deal nearly a
year ago with local partner tycoon Kyaw Win. Company spokesman Royhei
Sugata said a factory was being built, but refused to discuss details,
from the project's scale or brand name to the plant's location.
China's largest tobacco producer is also setting up a multi-million dollar joint venture.
"They seem to think by entering the market stealthily, they can avoid
public scrutiny," said Tin Maung, a retired army major and Myanmar's
top anti-smoking campaigner.
In a country where roads in many
places are almost unnavigable and power outages constant, the nominally
civilian government is hopeful that foreign investment will create new
jobs and help speed development. But other priorities such as health,
the environment and public welfare are sometimes swept aside.
Nang
Naing Naing Shane, who heads the Ministry of Health's National Tobacco
Control Program, said the Health Ministry's strong opposition to BAT, JT
and others was overridden by the Myanmar Investment Commission. The
commission's director quit under a cloud of suspicions about graft, but
tobacco investment approvals were not overturned.
For
international tobacco companies, facing declining smoking rates in their
former strongholds, Myanmar is an enticing prospect.
Awareness
about the health hazards is low, tobacco controls are weakly enforced,
and the anti-smoking lobby is effectively a one man act.
Over the
last six decades, 89-year-old Tin Maung has written hundreds of articles
in magazines and state-run newspapers, travelled to symposiums inside
the country and out, and visited schools to warn youth about the dangers
of smoking — funding all of his endeavors on his own.
Like many
Myanmar youth, he was only 10 when he took his first drag, so he knows
how easy it is to be drawn in. It wasn't until two decades later, when
he picked up a Reader's Digest and read an article spelling out the
dangers posed by smoking that he stopped.
A large proportion of the population smoke but only a fraction of them reach for filtered cigarettes.
According
to a 2007 World Health Organization survey, 45 percent of all men smoke
or chew tobacco. The rates for women and teenage boys are 8 percent and
13 percent respectively.
BAT's chief executive Nicandro Durante,
said on the company's website that BAT, returning 10 years after it was
forced to leave because of controversial links to the abusive military,
was "truly excited" to be back. It was also "keen to play an active part
in the country's economic and social advancement," he wrote.
The
tradition of smoking cigar-like "cheroots" — made from finely chopped up
tobacco leaves, stems and wood chips, tamarin and other flavors —
starts young in Myanmar, often a boy helping his father light up.
While many people know smoking is bad for health, few fully understand just how bad.
"I
heard that smoking can be harmful, but not everyone who smokes gets
cancer," said Khin Cho, a 37-year-old housewife, who smokes cheroot at
home and cigarettes in public. "I am okay now and I don't want to worry
about something that hasn't happened yet."
Even at the
over-crowded cancer ward in Yangon's main hospital few patients who
landed there because of tobacco understood the links to the deadly
disease until it was too late.
"I had no idea," said 60-year-old
Hla Soe, a chronic smoker for more than half a century, a drip dangling
from his right arm. "I'm from a village. I didn't quit until a year ago
when I found out I had lung cancer."
Myanmar ratified the WHO
tobacco treaty a few years ago, but laws and controls regulating the
sale, marketing and use of tobacco products are poorly enforced.
Selling to minors is illegal, but boys 12 or younger can regularly be seen buying loose cigarettes from street side vendors.
Local
companies use gimmicks to get around bans on advertising. Tay Za, one
of the country's richest tycoons who is famous for his stable of luxury
cars, places $5 or $10 bills lottery-style inside some of the packs of
his brand.
Tobacco giants who bring with them decades of marketing
experience and skills honed at capturing smokers for a lifetime are
also in a strong position to exploit legal loopholes.
Under
existing regulations, for instance, tobacco companies can promote their
name by offering scholarships to children, sponsor community projects or
using social networking sites such as Facebook.
It's also one of
the few countries in the region that has not added pictorial warnings on
cigarette packs, said Tara Singh Bam, a technical adviser on tobacco
control at the International Union against Tuberculosis and Disease
after wrapping up his second visit to the country since it opened up.
At the moment, only around 5 percent of the smoking population uses filtered cigarettes, according to WHO.
But
Mary Assunta, senior policy adviser with the Southeast Asia Tobacco
Control Alliance, expects habits to change as reforms energize the
economy.
"We expect the economy to boom and a growing middle class
to emerge with more disposable incomes," she said. Together with the
existing pervasiveness of smoking, "this gives plenty of room for
tobacco companies to focus on targeting the middle class and teenagers
with cheap cigarettes."
"We can expect to see walls of cigarette
packs at check-out counters and more prominent display panels of new
brands the companies will introduce with attractive packaging."
This all terrifies Tin Maung, the 89-year-old anti-smoking campaigner, who considers Big Tobacco the biggest fight of his life.
"Money can shut the mouth of many and I anticipate a very steep uphill battle with my anti-smoking campaign."
source: Mercedsunstar
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