Opinion | China tries to get serious on price limits for cigarettes

China's tobacco regulator is trying to enforce a price ceiling on cigarettes this year amid a general move to promote the government's austerity plans.

While other countries are raising cigarette prices to deter people from taking up the habit, China's upper price limit is aimed at cracking down on rampant corruption hidden in the sale and re-sale of exorbitantly priced cigarettes.

The state-owned China National Tobacco Corporation holds a national monopoly and controls an estimated 40 per cent of the world's cigarette sales. 

An enforcement of these measures would bring the highest possible price of a mainland pack of cigarettes down to 50 yuan, about the average price of a pack in Hong Kong. Currently, a cigarette box on the mainland can be worth thousands of yuan.

Restrictions on the sale of luxury cigarettes started to appear last year, Southern Weekly said, when the national monopoly holder had already told its subsidiaries not to supply tobacco to brands selling for more than 1,000 yuan a box.