Cigarette prices likely to be doubled

By Yun Suh-young

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to raise the price of a pack of cigarettes to 5,000 won, double the current price, but has yet to decide whether to implement this at once or introduce the increases gradually.

If the gradual introduction is followed, an increase in price of cigarettes will start next year. The increase margin will be 500 won in 2013 and 1,000 won each consecutive year until 2015. If increased at once, the new price will be charged starting next year.

The ministry initially planned to include the cigarette price hike plan in a proposal to revise the Health Law announced Monday but failed to do so due to a disagreement with the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

The proposal contains a clause that could require explicit photographic warnings to be placed on cigarette packs.

Korea is a haven for smokers because cigarettes priced at 2,500 won ($2.22), are the cheapest available among the OECD countries, reports show.

Countries with cheap cigarette prices other than South Korea were Poland (3,175 won), Japan (3,575 won), Slovakia (3,725 won) and Hungary (3,750 won) as of this year, according to a 2012 European Commission’s report of excise duty on tobacco.

Rankings in the 2010 WHO Global Health Observatory’s cigarette prices by most sold brand also showed similar results.

In this report, Korea ranked 34th with cigarette prices at $2.11, much lower than that of Japan ($3.47) which ranked 24th. Out of the 34 OECD countries, Korea had the cheapest cigarette price followed by Mexico ($2.37), Poland ($2.59), Estonia ($2.66) and Hungary ($2.8).

Countries that had lower cigarette prices than Korea were Gabon ($1.99), Brazil ($1.84), Nigeria ($1.69), and Indonesia ($1.47) among others.

Norway had the highest cigarette price ($13.3) followed by Ireland ($11.14), Australia ($10.77) and the United Kingdom ($9.8) out of the 194 countries surveyed.

Statistics by The Economist in 2010 showed that Korea and Japan were the only two countries among the surveyed OECD countries that had cigarette prices lower than that of a Big Mac.

The smoking rate was in inverse proportion to cigarette prices.

The percentage of smoking men in the OECD countries who are aged 15 and over were especially high in those countries that had the cheapest cigarette prices.

Korea had the second highest smoking rate of 44.3 percent following Greece with 46.3 percent. The OECD countries that had the cheapest cigarette prices following that of Korea also showed a relatively high percentage of smoking rates with Estonia at 38.6 percent, Poland (33.5%), Hungary (31.9%), and Mexico (21.6%).

Japan ranked fourth in the high smoking rate with 38.9 percent following Turkey at 43.8 percent.

To reduce such high smoking rates in Korea, the government is pushing to increase cigarette prices, albeit with fierce opposition.

“Increasing cigarette prices will be the best way to decrease smoking rates,” said an official at the health ministry.